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birb_cromble  11hr ago (text post)   144 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread - 2026-06-13

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

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Can someone more knowledgeable than I am explain what the purpose of an annuity is? They seem like a fixed income investment bound together with a life insurance policy. Is that the whole point? Am I missing something that makes them more attractive than that?

It's kind of the opposite of life insurance, really. The point of an annuity is that you can't outlive it, so you purchase annuities as a hedge against living longer than you anticipate, where life insurance is a hedge (you erect for others) against dying sooner than you anticipate. I think many annuities also have death benefits associated but I assume that is to mitigate unjust windfalls to the brokers.

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