Proper & Ethical Use of Annuities: We believe that annuities are first and foremost income vehicles, and should be used predominately for that purpose.  While some annuities can grow principal, they shine the brightest when used strategically for retirement cash flow purposes, and generally should not be thought of or marketed heavily as growth products - especially as alternatives to a traditional stock market-based portfolio for long-term growth. 
 

Superiority of Annuity Income: We believe that when used correctly for income, a properly designed income annuity is capable of producing significantly higher levels of safe and predictable retirement income than any other conventional method available - while using less initial principal to do it with. 
 

Annuity Risk-Management Advantages: We believe that income annuities create an attractive method for generating above-average levels of retirement income, while simultaneously and permanently eliminating downside market risk and sequence of return risk from a retiree's lifetime cash flow equation. 
 

Annuity Inflation Advantages: We believe that when structured correctly, a laddered lifetime income annuity strategy provides unparalleled advantages when it comes to generating scheduled, deliberate raises to a retirees lifetime cashflow all throughout there lifetime, giving a retiree more control and predictability when it comes to offsetting inflation than any conventional methods of income production. 
 

Annuity Leverage of Capital: We believe that when structured correctly, a retiree can produce much larger levels of annual income from annuity while dedicating a much smaller overall percentage of their portfolio to do it with.  

This in turns free up more capital for long term growth and liquidity purposes throughout their lifetime than a conventional income method - which requires tying up much more capital for only mediocre levels of income in return. 
 

Annuity Longevity Protection:  We believe that no other retirement income method can keep up with the value annuities can provide from a longevity protection standpoint.

One stand alone lifetime income annuity is enough to create a high level of contractually guaranteed, pension-style lifetime income.  

However, when arranged inside of an annuity laddering strategy with intionally staggered income start dates, a retiree can enjoy multiple streams of increasing-lifetime income that they can never lose or outlive.  
 

State of The Annuity Industry: We believe there to be a growing trend throughout the annuity industry to market annuities more and more as growth vehicles.  This is a trend that started in the mid 1990's with the advent of the fixed indexed annuity product concept.  

While we agree that it is possible for annuities to grow capital, we fundementally believe that annuities are predominately income vehicles and should be viewed as such.  

While both fixed rate and fixed indexed annuities can grow money, we believe that many of the negative experiences that people have documented with annuities over the past two decades can be traced back to incorrect expectations.  Situations where people falsely expected more growth potential and performance from these types of annuities than was ever realistic.

This is party due to questionable advertising practices or agent sales approaches, or simply because the consumer hoped that these products would do more for them on a hypothetical projected basis that what is realistic.
 

Summary of Core Philosophies:  When annuities are used correctly for income, they can outperform the cash flow rates of virtually every other conventional retirement income method out there.  But when they are marketed, sold, or bought with unrealistic expectations when it comes to long-term growth of lump sum principal, we believe this is where many of the poor experiences and complaints about annuities have occurred. 

It is our core belief that annuities should be used to generate the highest level of retirement income desired with the least amount of overall principal required - thereby freeing up the rest of the portfolio to enjoy continued long-term growth opportunities in legitimate growth environments.