Ken Fisher Hates Annuities. Should You?

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A fair look at the most famous anti-annuity campaign in America, and what it leaves out.

If you have searched the word “annuity” in the last ten years, you have probably seen Ken Fisher’s face next to the words “I hate annuities. And you should too.” Fisher Investments launched that campaign in 2013, and it has been running in print, online, and on television ever since.

It is one of the most successful pieces of financial marketing ever built. It is also one of the most incomplete.

I work with annuities every week. I also tell people when an annuity is the wrong tool for them, because for a lot of people it is. So this is not a rebuttal written by someone who thinks every annuity is wonderful. It is an attempt to give you the part of the conversation the ad leaves out, so you can decide for yourself.

Where Ken Fisher Is Right

Let’s start with fairness, because Fisher is not wrong about everything.

Some annuities are expensive. Some variable annuities stack mortality and expense charges, administrative fees, fund expenses, and rider costs until the total cost is hard to justify. Some contracts carry long surrender periods that make your money hard to reach. Some annuities are sold to people who did not need them, by people who did not explain them. All of that is real, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you.

Fisher himself has acknowledged the other side. In his December 2014 Forbes column, “Why I Hate Annuities,” Fisher acknowledged that some fixed annuities are okay. That one sentence is worth more attention than the entire billboard, because it concedes the point that matters: annuities are not one product. They are a category, the same way “mutual fund” or “car” is a category. Some are a bad fit for you. Some may be exactly what your plan is missing.

A slogan that hates the whole category cannot help you tell the difference.

What the Ad Is Actually For

Fisher Investments started an annuity buyout program in 2012, one year before the “I hate annuities” campaign launched. The program helps people leave existing annuities and move that money under Fisher’s management.

Fisher has been unusually honest about what that means. In that same column, after explaining that his firm often buys people out of the surrender fees on variable annuities if they stay on as Fisher clients, he wrote: “So my advice is conflicted.”

Read that again. The man behind the most famous anti-annuity message in the country told you, in his own words, that his advice on this subject is conflicted. He deserves credit for saying it. You deserve to factor it in.

In my view, the ad works less like a public service announcement and more like a client acquisition campaign. Every dollar that goes into an annuity is a dollar that is not being charged an annual management fee. That does not make Fisher dishonest. It makes him a businessman with a business model, and that business model competes with annuities for the same retirement dollars.

The Fee Question That Never Makes the Billboard

Fisher Investments publishes its fees in its Form CRS, a disclosure document filed with the SEC. Under the current schedule, the annual fee is 1.25% on the first $1 million, stepping down on larger amounts. Relationships under $1 million are billed at 1.50% a year.

Here is what that looks like for a typical retiree I might sit down with:

  • An $800,000 account at 1.50% costs $12,000 in year one.
  • Over ten years, that is about $120,000 if the balance and fee rate stayed unchanged. Actual fees rise or fall with the account value and the rate that applies.
  • That fee is charged whether the market is up or down, and it continues for as long as you are a client.

To be fair, an annuity with an optional income rider carries its own annual charge, and you should compare that line by line too. The difference is what each charge buys. One pays for ongoing management. The other pays for a contractual guarantee of income for life.

And a management fee does pay for a service. Ongoing portfolio management has real value for some people, and I refer clients to investment professionals when that is what they need. The point is not that fees are evil. The point is that every way of paying for financial help has a cost, and the ad only puts a spotlight on one of them.

Fisher’s own disclosure says it plainly: because the fee is based on the assets the firm manages, the firm has an incentive to encourage you to increase those assets. That is the conflict, stated by the firm itself.

Are Commissions Worse Than Fees?

The anti-annuity message leans hard on the idea that commissions are inherently dirty and fees are inherently clean. The truth is less dramatic.

On most fixed and fixed indexed annuities, the commission is paid by the insurance company, not taken out of your deposit. If you put $300,000 into a fixed indexed annuity, $300,000 goes to work for you on day one. There is typically no annual advisory fee charged against your balance for as long as you own the contract.

That does not mean the commission is free. The insurance company recovers its costs over time, which is part of why annuities have surrender periods and why crediting rates and caps are set where they are. You pay for the commission indirectly. You just don’t pay it as a separate line item every year.

Access is a separate question. How much you can withdraw, what the surrender value is in any given year, how interest is credited, and whether the contract includes a lifetime income guarantee at all depend on the specific contract. Not every annuity provides lifetime income.

That does not mean annuities are free, and I will not pretend they are. Here is what an honest agent should explain before you sign anything:

  • Surrender charges. Most annuities have a surrender period, often several years, during which taking out more than the allowed free withdrawal triggers a charge. Money you may need for an emergency, a roof, or a car does not belong there.
  • Optional rider fees. Income riders and other optional benefits usually carry an annual charge. You should know exactly what it is and what it buys.
  • Limits on growth. Fixed indexed annuities protect your principal from market losses, and in exchange they cap or limit how much of the market’s upside you receive.

A one-time commission paid by the carrier is a different structure from an annual fee paid by you. Neither is automatically good or bad. What matters is whether the product fits your situation and whether you understood the trade-offs before you bought it.

“Fiduciary” Is a Standard, Not a Halo

The word fiduciary has become a marketing badge. It is a real legal standard, and it matters. But it does not erase conflicts of interest. It requires that they be disclosed and managed, which is exactly why Fisher’s own Form CRS spells out its incentive to grow the assets it manages.

Insurance professionals operate under their own standard. In 2020, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners adopted a “best interest” standard for annuity recommendations, which requires the agent to put your interest ahead of their own. Nearly every state has now adopted some version of it, and Tennessee is among them. An annuity recommendation today requires the agent to gather your financial picture, document why the recommendation fits, and disclose how they are paid.

Every compensation model has a conflict. A commissioned agent has an incentive to sell a product. A fee-based manager has an incentive to retain assets under management. The question is never “is there a conflict?” The question is “has this person shown me the whole picture, including the option that pays them nothing?”

That applies to me too. My conflict is the mirror image of Fisher’s: I am paid when an insurance product is placed, and I am not paid when I tell someone an annuity is wrong for them. You should weigh my advice with that in mind, the same way you would weigh his.

What an Annuity Does That a Portfolio Cannot

Here is the part the billboard never mentions.

A portfolio can grow. A portfolio can be managed. What a portfolio cannot do is promise you a paycheck that lasts as long as you do, no matter how long that is and no matter what the market does in the year you retire.

That is what a lifetime income annuity is built to do. It transfers the risk of living a long time to an insurance company, which pools that risk across thousands of people. Economists have studied this for decades. In 1965, economist Menahem Yaari showed mathematically why turning part of your savings into lifetime income can improve retirement security, and a long line of retirement researchers since has built on that work.

In practice, I think of it as building an income floor. Social Security, any pension, and guaranteed income from an annuity cover the bills that have to be paid every month. Everything above that floor can stay invested, grow, and be managed however you like. If you want to go deeper on that idea, I wrote about it in The Income Floor, and about where guaranteed income actually comes from in Guaranteed Lifetime Income: Where It Comes From.

This is not an either/or decision. The best retirement plans I see usually use both: guarantees for the floor, investments for growth. Be cautious of anyone, on either side, who insists you have to pick one.

Americans Keep Buying Them

While the “I hate annuities” ads have run, Americans have been buying annuities at record levels. According to LIMRA, total U.S. annuity sales reached $464.1 billion in 2025, the fifth straight year of growth and a new all-time record.

Annuities serve different purposes, from locking in a fixed rate to protecting principal to creating lifetime income, and record sales do not make any particular contract right for you.

Who Should Listen to Ken Fisher

In fairness, there are people for whom Fisher’s general warning is good advice:

  • People who may need most of their money accessible in the next few years.
  • People who already have enough guaranteed income from pensions and Social Security to cover their essential expenses.
  • People who are comfortable riding out market declines with the money they live on.
  • Anyone being pressured to buy a complicated contract they do not understand.

If that is you, an annuity may not belong in your plan, and I would tell you so.

But if you are within ten years of retirement, worried about outliving your money, and unsure how your savings will turn into a paycheck, a blanket “hate” is not a plan. It is someone else’s marketing.

Five Questions to Ask Anyone Giving You Annuity Advice

Whether you are talking to me, to Fisher Investments, or to anyone else, these five questions will tell you a lot:

  1. How are you paid if I follow your advice, and how are you paid if I don’t?
  2. What does this cost me every year, in dollars, not percentages?
  3. How much of my monthly spending is covered by income that is guaranteed for life?
  4. What happens to my income if the market drops 30% in my first year of retirement?
  5. What would you recommend if your recommendation paid you nothing?

Anyone who is serving you well should be able to answer all five without flinching.

The Bottom Line

Ken Fisher is a skilled investor and a brilliant marketer. His campaign has done exactly what it was designed to do. But a campaign that brings assets to an investment firm should not be your only guide to whether guaranteed income belongs in your retirement.

Don’t hate annuities. Don’t love them either. Understand them, then decide.

If you are in Nashville or anywhere in Middle Tennessee and want a second opinion, whether you own an annuity now, are considering one, or have been told to avoid them entirely, I am glad to walk through it with you. Every conversation with me is free, and you will leave with a clear picture of your options, including the ones that don’t involve me. Schedule a conversation here.

Sources

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Kurtz Lytle is the founder of IUL.Solutions, an independent insurance and retirement income practice based in Nashville, TN. All recommendations are made only after a full suitability review in accordance with each state’s insurance regulations. IUL.Solutions does not provide tax, legal, or investment advice. NPN #8993693.

Ken Fisher and Fisher Investments are referenced for educational commentary only, based on their own published statements and regulatory disclosures. IUL.Solutions is not affiliated with Fisher Investments. Annuity guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Fees and figures cited are from the sources listed above as of publication.

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