Explore how annuities can provide security and steady income.
Is an Annuity Right for You?
An Annuity is a key component of a comprehensive financial strategy. It involves understanding your unique needs, goals, and circumstances to create a plan that supports your long-term financial health. Whether you're preparing for retirement, navigating a major life event, or building wealth, it helps ensure you're making informed decisions. At Carter Financial Group, we provide guidance tailored to your specific situation, combining expert knowledge with a personalized approach. Our goal is to help you feel confident about your financial future. Through thoughtful planning and ongoing support, we help turn your goals into actionable, achievable steps.
How Annuities Fit Into Your Retirement Plan
Annuities are financial products designed to provide a steady income stream, often for retirees. When used strategically, they can offer tax-deferred growth, guaranteed income options, and protection against outliving your savings. At Carter Financial Group, we guide you through the complexities of annuities—whether fixed or indexed—helping you evaluate their fit within your broader financial picture. We prioritize clarity, ensuring you understand the fees, benefits, and limitations before making a commitment. With personalized advice grounded in your goals, we ensure your annuity strategy supports your long-term retirement and legacy planning without compromising flexibility or control over your assets.
There are contract limitations and fees and charges associated with annuities, administrative fees, and charges for optional benefits. They also may carry early withdrawal penalties and surrender charges, and carry additional risks such as the insurance carrier's ability to pay claims. Moreover, annuities carry investment risk similar to mutual funds. Investors should carefully review the terms of the variable annuity contract before investing.
Annuities offer the advantage of tax-deferred growth, allowing your investment to compound without immediate tax consequences. This means you won’t pay taxes on interest, dividends, or capital gains until you withdraw funds, which can be particularly beneficial for long-term retirement planning. By deferring taxes, you may benefit from lower tax rates in retirement while maximizing the value of your investment over time. Annuities can serve as a strategic supplement to traditional retirement accounts, especially for individuals who have maxed out other tax-advantaged savings options. Our advisors help assess whether this benefit aligns with your broader financial goals.
The short answer: Diversification. Peace of Mind. Flexibility!
Many retirees and soon-to-be retirees are concerned over the safety of their investments in mutual funds, ETFs and stocks. The gyration in the stock market is often hard to stomach for seniors entering their Golden Years. An Annuity has potential to add a layer of diversification to your retirement portfolio.
Then, there’s peace of mind. Annuities are structured as investment vehicles that are insulated from the fate of stock market behavior. The nature of Annuities means you’ll never need to worry about when/how long you’ll need to wait before you recoup losses from the next stock market crash! Your Annuity investments are sheltered from such risks.
And of course, for the soon-to-be retiree who is concerned that he/she has missed the proverbial retirement savings boat, Annuities offer good news! Because there’s no limit to how much you can contribute in Annuities, on an after-tax basis, you’ll have flexibility in how much you save, and will never have to worry whether it’s too late to play the “catch up” game.