With the debate over Social Security reform percolating, and employers expecting their workers to take more responsibility for their retirement funding, questions like these are increasingly driving scholarly agendas and policy discussions.
Annuities are a complex and remarkably flexible financial product.
Insurance company sales of variable annuities have soared in recent years. In 1951, life insurance premiums were more than seven times greater than annuity premiums. In 1993, life insurance premiums were roughly 60 percent of annuity premium income. Annuities have been available in the United States for more than two centuries. Yet they remained a sliver of the U.S. insurance market until the financial and economic trauma of the Great Depression.