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No, this isn't going to be a two-hour-long rant. Still, it could be if I was going to explain every nuance of Fixed Indexed Annuities, indexed annuities, hybrid annuities, whatever you're being pitched.

Hi there. Stan, The Annuity Man. America's Annuity agent® is licensed in all 50 states. Today's topic is Retirement Withdrawal Strategies. We will talk about Fixed Index Annuities, FIAs, today regarding retirement withdrawal strategies. Fixed Index Annuities are very popular, and often, they're mis-sold, over-hyped, and over-promised.

The question is: is an indexed annuity fixed or variable? There's a lot more to it than just the short answer. I would like to go through what a fixed indexed annuity is, an indexed annuity, and a variable annuity and tell the differences in both.

Everybody is asking me this, how do interest rates affect annuities? Now, you just can't say they affect all annuities the same way because there are different types of annuities. What we're going to do is we're going to go through every single type that's out there, and I'm going to tell you precisely how interest rates affect each one of them.

Back by popular demand once again, Mr. FIA-X joins me on Fun With Annuities episode #89. Without a doubt, he is one of the most popular guests I have on because people are so interested in the FIA (aka: Fixed Indexed Annuity) topic and want to know the brutal truth.

Today's topic is how annuity companies make money on fixed index annuities. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and I'm going to try to make it very simple for you to understand why the annuity companies have significant buildings. They're smart.

So, annuity companies, how do they make money? There's a reason that annuity companies have significant buildings and that they do very, very well. Why? It's because they know when we're going to die. Property and casualty companies, however, don't know when the hurricane's going to hit. They don't know when the tornado's going to hit.

Mr. FIA-X joins us again on the Fun With Annuities podcast for episode #69 this week to reveal the secrets of how the “annuity sausage” is made. His first appearance set records for listeners and viewers, and the demand for more of his insights was overwhelming.

Is an annuity affected by the stock market? The stock market and annuities are giant topics, and some are affected by the stock market, and some aren't. We're going to go through every single type of annuity, single premium, immediate annuities, deferred income annuities, QLACs, multi-year guarantee annuities, index annuities, variable annuities, all of them.

Today's topic is a good one. How renewal rates are the secret sauce, the secret formula, the secret to fixed indexed annuities. So let's do a little history lesson on fixed index annuities, the hottest selling product out there in annuity world. Indexed annuities were developed and introduced in 1995 as a CD type product.

So the question is, what's the difference between a pension and an annuity? Is a pension the same as an annuity? We're going to go into that. Short answer is they're both lifetime income guarantees, but let's dig further and do a side-by-side comparison of pensions and annuities so you can understand what's out there.

“Got guarantees?” should be the annuity industry's mantra to words because that's what they are. They're contractual guarantees. They're transfer of risk products, period. If you're a living, breathing, human-being with a bank account, then you're probably going to get pitched an indexed annuity by somebody because it's a good story.

The hottest “sounds too good to be true” and “best thing since sliced bread” product to hit the financial world in the past few years is the Fixed Index Annuity (FIA). Regardless of your specific financial goals, some agent or financial advisor will most likely pitch you this product…

There are many types of fixed annuities.