“First a little background on what annuities do: Annuities primarily provide safety against the possibility of outliving your money in retirement. You give money, a certain amount of money, to in effect an insurance company. They’ll promise to make payments to you as long as you live,” Walden explains.

“Now one of the concerns you mentioned is, ‘What if you die soon?’ What if you die in a couple of years after you start? Well you lose all the money. Well, modern annuities have addressed this, and many of them will allow payments to continue to your heirs. So that problem can be addressed.

“The other problem you mentioned is, ‘What about inflation protection?’ Two thousand dollars looks good now but in 10 years it will be small. Many of them having a stated policy whereby your payments will increase with the inflation rate, maybe based on the CPI,” Walden adds.

“So if you are near or in retirement I think you should take another look at today’s annuities.”