Indicative market-average rates by age, with the real trade-offs priced in: spouse provision, guarantee periods, inflation-linking and enhanced health rates. The same annuity model the full Hundred Summers plan uses. Your figures never leave your browser.
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An annuity is insurance in reverse: you hand an insurer a pension pot and they pay a guaranteed income until you die, however long that is. The rate depends mostly on your age (older buyers get more per pound, because the insurer expects to pay for fewer years) and on gilt yields (what the insurer can safely earn on your money). Every option you add — income continuing to a spouse, a guarantee period, inflation-linking — is paid for out of the starting rate, which is why an index-linked joint-life annuity starts at barely half the level single-life income.
Enhanced annuities pay more if your life expectancy is reduced — smoking, diabetes, heart conditions and many common medications all qualify. Around half of applicants qualify for some enhancement, and it is one of the few times poor health improves a financial quote, so always disclose honestly when getting real quotes.
Once bought, an annuity usually cannot be changed or cashed in, and beyond any guarantee period or spouse provision, nothing passes to your estate. Against that: no investment risk, no running-out risk, and no decisions to make at 90. The full Hundred Summers plan models an annuity, flexible drawdown, or a blend of the two inside your whole lifetime picture — including the tax on the income and what each route leaves behind.
Hundred Summers