To those who aren’t in the financial know (which would be mostly everybody), hearing about investments, retirement, annuities, CDs, mutual funds, and pensions just makes their head spin and their stomachs revolt. Unfortunately, if you plan to live longer than 60 years, you need to hear and understand these terms as they relate to you…especially the term, annuities.

An annuity is a contract you have with an insurance company that says that if you invest a certain amount of money with them, then you will get a certain amount of money back when you retire. The amount of money you get back is based on the amount of money you initially invested and, if you invested in variable annuity, you gained or lost any money in the market.

Before you sit down and sign on the contract’s dotted line, you need to do some research and ask for annuity rates comparison from several different insurance companies.

Shop Around

You don’t just want into a department store and buy the first thing you see. Not only is that a bad idea, but it can cost you a lot of money you may not actually have. You wouldn’t do that with annuities either. Before you settle on one, you should shop around to find the best rates by using annuity rates comparison charts, quotes, and statements.

Don’t Get Stuck

Fortunately, if you bought something at a department store, chances are that you can take the item back and get your money back. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in annuities. Once that money is invested, it’s really hard to get it back without red tape, angry hair pulling, and a lot of back and forth.

Always do an annuity rates comparison before you invest. You don’t want to get stuck with a bad rate, or an ugly sweater.