Annuities with Guaranteed Income

The size of pension payments

As a rule, the size of your pension payments is calculated when you choose to start the income phase of your annuity (i.e. when you're done investing in it). From that point on, your pension payments are guaranteed in amount but not guaranteed in duration, since the pension lasts only as long as you survive.

Several alternative payout options exist (see below), which grant the owner partial or complete guarantee over the duration of the annuity's pension.

The standard annuity structure does not fix the size of your pension payments until the start of the income phase. In other words, the size of your income payments is not guaranteed at the creation of the annuity but becomes guaranteed later.

Alternative payout options

As a rule, the duration of the income stream is not fixed; it lasts for as long as you continue to live, however long or brief. It is possible to guarantee or partially guarantee the duration of your income stream, however. To completely guarantee the duration, use a period certain annuity. To guarantee a minimum duration at least, use a life annuity with a period certain option.