Do waivers provide access to your annuity before retirement?

Your annuity might contain a waiver that triggers payments that are not subject to the usual surrender fees, if you need to go to a nursing home before retirement or simply become seriously disabled.

According to the Variable Annuity Research and Data Service (VARDS), 161 annuity contracts usually offer some type of waiver. Considering the hundreds of annuity products on the market today, that’s not a large number.

Similarly, 282 fixed annuities were surveyed by Beacon Research, an annuity-tracking service based in Illinois, and they found that 35 percent have a death waiver.

There are four major types of waivers: death benefit waiver, nursing home waiver, terminal illness waiver, and the disability waiver.

If you die before you annuitize, the death benefit waiver passes on your annuity. Even if your subaccounts have lost value, your annuity contributions remain unchanged.

If you want to talk about the death benefit waiver, contact your insurance agent in order to thoroughly find out what a death benefit waiver is.

If you’re confined to a nursing facility, you won’t be charged surrender fees and you’ll be allowed access to some or your entire annuity when you use a nursing home waiver.

If you become terminally ill, your annuity may contain a provision that waives surrender charges; therefore, allowing you access to your money when you most need it. However, companies vary the definition for this waiver.

It makes perfect sense to purchase a disability waiver, considering the fact that people between the ages of 20 to 65 have a high risk of disability. However, very few companies offer it.

If you want to find out more about waivers or are considering about getting a waiver, you should contact your insurance company.

Waivers do provide additional coverage to your policy, and it will be very reasonable for you to consider one.

When contacting your insurance company, speak with an insurance agent. Always feel free to pick up the phone and make a call to your insurer. Because insurance is one of the necessities in our lives, we must learn to deal with it accordingly.

Waivers do provide access to your annuity before retirement, so if that interests you, pick up the phone and make that call to your insurance agent.