Fixed Annuity

• The initial fixed annuity rate is an interest rate the insurance company may credit for a set period of time after you first buy your fixed annuity.  The initial rate in some contracts may be higher than it will be later.  This is often called a bonus rate. 
• The renewal rate is the fixed rate credited by the annuity company after the end of the set time period. 
  Three year, four, five, seven and ten years of fixed annuity rates are common choices.
  The contract tells how the company will set the fixed renewal rate, which may be tied to an external reference or index.

Fixed Annuity Rates                     Or call 1-800-286-1812 for current rates

The experts we spoke with recommended that retirees enhance their guaranteed income by purchasing an annuity with some limited portion of their savings, yet few workers leaving employment with DC pensions and retiring (6.1 percent) converted their funds or a portion of the money to an annuity. (See fig. 7.) An estimated 38.8 percent that reported leaving employment with a DC pension and retiring during the 2000 to 2006 period left funds in the account, and 30.3 percent rolled them over to an IRA. Fewer chose to take a withdrawal (15.8 percent). This analysis, however, only reveals the decisions that retirees made immediately or soon after leaving employment. In some cases some of the retirees may have purchased annuities at a later time.

Source GAO-11-400 Retirement Income pg. 28