No. of Recommendations: 1
I used Blueprint Income as the broker (painless so far but not quite 100% complete so will reserve some judgement for the moment) and lo and behold bought from Axonic. Blueprintincome.com - great comparison site that was similar to immediateannuities.com in providing a thorough list of choices.
I bought two from Midland National and one from New York life last yer when I built this at retirement time. They were not as beefy in rate as what is showing up today via searching about, and that may be because they’re more likely A+ rated by A.M. Best. Schwab facilitated those, and I staked out on my own this year. I don’t think Schwab offers more risky stuff. I was cool with A-m this round.
My wife asked a lot about risk and failure of the issuing companies. I was illiterate on this before, so some basics for you all. There is no FDIC for these, but every state has a similar organization - they’re usually called guaranty associations. Most states offer $250k per annuitant, some a bit less or more. I was cool with that; there is little press about these types of failures.
Poking through bogleheads, before I bought, I found multiple positive mentions of both immediate annuities and Blueprint.
The interesting, lofty rate new kid in town, that showed up on Blueprint in the search but was too new for me to pull the trigger this year is Knighthood. I think they were still offering 6.3% on 5 year MYGAs.
