The Liberty Life Assurance Company recently announced its newest product, the Freedom Series Builder Annuity, an investment system that is designed to protect savings and generate earnings for retirement, according to Insurance News Net.
Features of the builder annuity are malleable, allowing investors to tailor the product to their specific financial planning needs. While providing the retirement security of a fixed deferred annuity, the builder annuity also offers customers a number of guarantees purchased with a reduction in interest rates on the initial investment.
Most of the safeguard options built into the annuity allow investors to access funding ahead of schedule, for specific reasons, without a penalty, according to the source. This circumvents a typical annuity policy that makes most investors wary of less versatile products.
"The result," said Mark McVeigh, senior vice president of marketing and distribution at Liberty, "is that builder owners have more control over the design and price of their annuities, compared to other insurance carriers' annuities, which often come pre- packaged with features that buyers must pay for, but may not actually need."
According to the Insurance Information Institute, fixed annuities sales in the United States declined by 27 percent in 2010, while variable sales increased by 10 percent.