When Should You Buy Annuities? 
Like all product considerations , non-qualified tax deferred annuities need to fit the individual saver or investor product suitability profile . Long term savers or investors that have high tax brackets should consider non-qualified tax deferred annuities . There are basically three crediting methods used in deferred annuities : interest rate crediting , indice crediting and separate sub account crediting . Interest rates are generated by the companys predominately government bond portfolio . Most indexed annuities invest their interest rate returns in domestic and foreign index options . Some indexed annuities that credit zero in a given year , still charge policy expenses and which could result in a loss . Variable annuities use equity and bond instruments in their separate sub accounts selected by the variable annuity owner . These separate sub account allocations are subject to market risk , i.e. you can lose money . 