Blue River Annuities

Blue River Annuity Services - For Life After Work

Call our Helpline 08000 936399

As independent annuity advisors our aim is to help you understand the issues you will be confronted with in your life after work. More specifically, to make you aware and then help you assess the many options available to you when deciding which annuity is best for you. When approaching retirement, buying an annuity with your pension fund is one of the most important decisions you will make and could have a dramatic impact on the income you receive for your life after work.

Traditionally, the vast majority of people opt for the safe and straightforward lifetime annuity. This will pay out a guaranteed level of income for the rest of your life and at the outset gives you the option to include a spouses pension.

Whilst this approach works well for many, we regularly hear the following criticisms from clients:

1. My annuity dies with me.
2. The pension company keeps my fund when I die.
3. There is no flexibility in the income I receive.

There are annuity plans in the marketplace that address these criticisms and concerns and we often wonder which option a client would choose if made fully aware of the choices available.

At Blue River, we have developed our Annuity Service to ensure that all of our clients are made aware of these choices and receive the best annuity for their circumstances. Our online annuity calculator will give you an idea of the income on offer from a basic annuity at the present time, but please read on to learn about the different options that are available.

How Annuities Work

A quote for a level lifetime annuity will provide a figure for the monthly income you will receive in retirement. This figure is linked to two key factors:

1. The life expectancy of a person of your age in good health (and that of your spouse if you elect to include him/her in the pension quote).
2. The prevailing interest rate at the time of the quote.

It is possible for annuities to provide a guaranteed payment period for up to ten years, however, after this point, on death, there will be no further payments due under the plan.

Furthermore, once set up, the annuity cannot be altered.

The fact that an annuity cannot be altered is significant as the original lifetime annuity quote does not include the following factors:

1. You & your spouses individual state of health at the time you buy your annuity.
2. The impact of future interest rates changes.

Dealing with this first issue, if you do suffer from poor health, it is possible to significantly enhance the pension income you receive with an enhanced life annuity. The level of enhancement can be easily determined by the completion of a simple medical questionnaire. Furthermore, if your state of health is a real concern, there are annuity plans available in the market that include an element of lump sum death benefits prior to age 75. Indeed, this feature is available to anybody who is concerned that on their death or the death of their spouse, there are no benefits available to be distributed to their heirs.

These type of plans can also work very well for clients who are concerned that a lifetime annuity will lock them into current interest rates for the rest of their lives.

Whilst nobody can accurately predict future interest rates, they currently stand at record lows. Rather than committing to a lifetime annuity now, it is possible to take out a temporary annuity plan for the next five years and then reassess your options at the end of this period.

The guarantee of the income on these plans expires after five years, but at that point you will have a guaranteed fund, which will be used to buy your next annuity. If interest rates are higher at this time, you will be likely to be better off from the more generous annuity rates on offer.

Alternatively, your health might have deteriorated over the five year period and you could benefit from an enhanced annuity.

In addition to this, you will also have the option to include lump sum death benefits under the plan, so the entire fund will not be lost on your untimely passing.

Blue River Annuity Advisors, Cheshire

Whichever options appeals to you, as mentioned previously, please feel free to use our online annuity calculator. You can also complete our online enquiry form or call our dedicated helpline on 08000 936399 and we can discuss your individual requirements in more detail.