Buying a pension annuity - who's got best rates

Liam under pros you say "....and/or a spouse's income should you die first". Under Cons you say "annuity dies with you". Does one not contradict the other? Either it dies with you or it continues to provide an income for spouse. Grateful for further clarification on this.

Happy Girl said:

Liam under pros you say "....and/or a spouse's income should you die first". Under Cons you say "annuity dies with you". Does one not contradict the other? Either it dies with you or it continues to provide an income for spouse. Grateful for further clarification on this.

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Assuming you survive to the end of the guarantee period (typically 5 years, although you can buy an unguaranteed annuity if you wish) the annuity dies with you, unless you opt for some or all of it to continue to be paid to a dependant and that dependant outlives you. Any options you choose (guarantee period, dependant's pension, increases) will reduce the annual pension you receive.

Thanks Happy Girl & Homer,

I've amended the post to try to make it a bit clearer.

A new (?) website pensionannuity.ie is now doing execution only quotes from Zurich Life. It would be interesting to see if these compete with New Ireland or Irish Life.

Just to update this thread, Standard Life are currently competing for annuity business and so should be on people's short-list. A point to be remembered is that companies come in and out of the annuity market so whie this post is valid at the time of writing (April 2013) it might become obsolete if, for example, Standard Life choose to stop competing for annuity business in the future.