Mort

4 de julio de 2026

Comprehensive Overview .Detailed Analysis, Helpful Insights & Takeaways

Get your calculator mindset handy! Terrific stuff for enough background to persist & digest. Especially convincing [to the extent possible] for those with a successful investment life, a deep cynicism about annuities or compulsive self reliance. A persuasive path for my appraisal of annuities from suspect to be avoided to possible ally. Good luckVer más

Derek Tsui

31 de agosto de 2020

The best book on annuities and life insurance I have read so far - fixed income professional

This book is an objective and balanced analysis of the pros/cons of utilizing annuities and life insurance within a retirement framework.It is ideally suited to those who are looking to get a good grasp of the product features, their varieties, and their appropriate use within a retirement context.As a fixed income professional with over twenty years experience managing investments and trading financial products, I found the book more in-depth and useful than the numerous articles and blogs I have been researching so far. It fills my knowledge gap in personal retirement products.For example, Wade goes through an in-depth explanation of why annuities can help increase the risk capacity of the retirement investment portfolio to both improve retirement income sustainability as well as legacy wealth. I found his reasoning clear and robust. His charts and numbers elaborated and clarified a lot of what I suspected (but was taking much longer to proof out).For those considering this book, a good understanding of present value and probability is required to benefit from the explanations and examples. It is a bit heavy going at points because the examples have detailed numbers illustrating how features interact and drive the price and risk of each product. However, each of the examples are clear and relevant and worth the study.Having said this, the book is not suited for people looking for shallow bullet points advocating one product over another. The book is designed to be logical and comprehensive, not inspirational.The other qualification I make is that from a personal point of view, some of the conclusions made in the book are dependant on the relative pricing and returns at time of comparison. At the time of writing (Sep 2020), interest rates are at record lows, a consequence of the Fed’s unprecedented stimulatory response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With bond yields so low, I am not 100% confident that current payout ratios will justify implementing an income annuity given current interest rate levels relative to projected equity returns. Practically, putting up one third of my portfolio into an income annuity for such a low payout is a big psychological hurdle. I am getting some quotes on annuities tomorrow - so I’ll see.A suggestion to those who buy the book:In this book’s retirement analysis, the risk assumption (volatility/standard deviation) is critical because it drives the distribution of outcomes. The improved distribution of outcomes is one of the main reasons for the inclusion of income annuities. At this point I am not aware of an easy way to calculate the distribution of outcomes outside of Monte Carlo. I have a suspicion that some of those benefitting from this book (like myself) may want to model the distribution of outcomes themselves, because it is very sensitive to the risk assumption. I found that running my retirement portfolio (with income annuity inclusion) through a simple Monte Carlo simulation in excel has been very helpful.Ver más

45 personas la encontraron útil

J. Cotton

28 de diciembre de 2019

Great for Advisers

This is an outstanding reference. I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only because it will be most valuable to retirement advisers and well-informed individuals. I suspect that most readers without a strong background in retirement finance will quickly tune out. It's a little pricey for those readers.Ver más

11 personas la encontraron útil

AWS_fan

20 de diciembre de 2025

Exceptional Financial Planning Resource - Highly Recommended

Excellent and comprehensive overview of financial options for meeting retirement goals without fully relying on stocks and bonds which have great long term returns but high volatility and sequence of returns risk that may wreck your retirement. Completely changed my perspective on financial planning. No hype but plenty of charts and data to support his recommendations. Far superior than most of the other 20+ other retirement planning books I have read. Yes, the writing style is a bit academic, but the content is excellent. There is zero hype in this book. The author also has a podcast and done online interviews. Clearly one of the most knowledgeable financial experts today. Highly recommended.Ver más

1 persona la encontró útil

SRR

19 de noviembre de 2025

A great read if an annuity makes sense for your retirement.

You can’t go wrong with anything written by Wade Pfau. If you’re retirement may be jeopardized by a steep decline in the market, this book is for you.

fneuf

6 de marzo de 2020

Annuity guide

The book didn't flow as well as the prior one on "How much I can spend."The terms used in annuity descriptions are many and varied in part by insurance company jargon. I think some more editing of longer paragraphs would have helped some areas which seemed redundant.Ver más

6 personas la encontraron útil