Income for life - guaranteed

An annuity in the UK financial services sector has a particular life form quite different from virtually anywhere else in the world. For example, a fixed annuity in the United States is a mutual (unitised) fund that produces a fixed-rate annual return. Hence, in the 1990s, when guarantee riders that are optional from fund to fund were added to the fixed annuities, the term "variable annuity" was coined. In the UK, quite simply an annuity is a contract that pays a specified income - the annuity - each year that the annuitant lives or for a particular number of years that the person on whos...