Aviva Annuity Advert – did you see it?

I noticed an interesting advert in the Daily Mail this week, by Aviva selling their lifetime annuity (see below).

Aviva are one of many lifetime annuity providers, and sometimes provide some pretty competitive rates.

Now, if lifetime annuities were the only type of annuity, then I would tend to agree that you only get one chance, because that’s how a lifetime annuity works:

You send part or all of your pension fund to a provider like Aviva and in return they provide you with an income designed to last for your lifetime. They are often selected by people who do not want to revisit things at a later date – think of it as ‘fire and forget’.

For those who don’t want to make an irrevocable choice, a temporary annuity might be worth considering.

In the case of a temporary (also known as a term annuity), your annuity lasts for a specified term, for example, 6 years. At the end of that term, you get to make another choice.

Of course there are risks with both lifetime and term annuities which you should discuss with your adviser, and annuities are not the only way of taking an income from your pension fund.

However, my main point is that if you take the Aviva advert at face value, you might think that there is only once choice of annuity, when both you and I now know, there is more than one choice.