Safe Money Radio

Annuities 101: John Stevenson on What Buyers Should Know

Most people who sit down with an annuity agent see one option, maybe two, and are told it’s the best available. John Stevenson built his career by doing the opposite. In this episode of Safe Money Radio, host Brett Blake talks with Stevenson, a Certified Financial Fiduciary®, author of Guaranteed Retirement, and host of The Guaranteed Retirement Guy show on YouTube. By his own count, Stevenson meets with more than 600 new people a year, most of them between 50 and 65.

by, Brett Blake
Aug 26, 2026

About This Blog

He runs every meeting the same way. He shares his screen, pulls up the carriers and payout options on the market, and lets the client watch him work. Here’s what he covered, in plain language.

Every Option on One Screen

The core of Stevenson’s approach is a shared screen. When a client wants lifetime income, he plugs in the premium amount, the retirement date, and single or joint payout, and the software lists the top carriers and income riders side by side. An income rider is an optional feature attached to a fixed index annuity that provides lifetime income, subject to the contract’s terms.

Clients see the whole list, including the letter ratings that reflect each insurance company’s financial strength. If the highest payout comes from an A‑ minus rated carrier, Stevenson talks it through. Some clients take it. Others pay a little more premium for an A+ rated company. Either way, the client sees the tradeoff and makes the call.

Brett adds context from his day job at Annuity.com. There are more than 2,400 annuity products on the market, each with multiple moving parts, and in a given week, 15 or 20 of them change rates. No one keeps all of that straight in their head, so a wise agent uses a comparison tool.

Stevenson goes one step further and brings the client into the kitchen. He would rather find the answer together, live on screen, than hand down a recommendation and ask the client to trust it. As he puts it on the show, he can sit beside people and guide them instead of selling at them across a table.

How Agents Get Paid

Stevenson names his commission out loud, on the call, before anyone asks twice. If the option that pays the client the most happens to pay him less, he shows it anyway and says so. He describes walking clients through the screen and pointing at a product he would love to sell because it pays him more, then pointing at the one above it that pays the client a higher income.

His reasoning is simple. Everyone knows the agent gets paid. Naming the number takes the tension out of the room, and a client who can see everything laid out can make the best decision for themselves.

Brett clears up a related fear. Many people avoid meeting an agent because they assume the commission comes out of their money, the way a real estate fee comes out of a sale price. He explains on the show that these products are priced the same with or without an agent, and the carriers pay the agent out of their own future margin, not through fees added to the contract. Experienced guidance, in other words, does not raise the price of the product.

Stevenson’s caution runs the other direction. An agent who shows only one product usually has a reason, and it is rarely the client’s payout.

The Least Premium Rule

Ask Stevenson what he optimizes for and he gives one rule: reach the client’s income goal with the least amount of their portfolio. If someone needs another $25,000 a year on top of Social Security and a pension, he plugs that target in and looks for the smallest premium that produces it.

The rest of the client’s money stays outside the contract, liquid and available. That freedom matters, he says, because a retiree whose essential income is already covered can hold savings and investments without panic when markets drop.

He holds that line even when clients push. He tells the story of a man with $120,000 to his name who wanted to put all of it into an annuity. Stevenson refused, and noted the carrier would have rejected the application anyway.

His general guidance on the show is to keep at least 20 to 30 percent of your liquid assets outside any annuity contract, and he is clear the right number depends on the person. Suitability is individual. A contract that fits one retiree may not fit another, and a good agent says no when the numbers call for it.

Sales Tactics to Watch

Stevenson lists four warning signs. The first is manufactured urgency. If an agent says rates are dropping next week and you must sign now, ask to see the rates. Stevenson pulls up his own screen, shows clients exactly which rates are moving, and tells them to reach out when they are comfortable.

The second is the one-option pitch. An agent who presents a single product as the best, with nothing beside it for comparison, is showing you a decision that has already been made for you.

The third is the teaser number. Ads lean on a big bonus or a high roll-up rate, and those figures tell part of the story. A roll-up rate grows the benefit base, but the income you actually receive is that base multiplied by a withdrawal rate, so a product with a lower roll-up and a higher withdrawal rate can pay more. Stevenson’s test is whole-picture math, on screen, against your actual goal.

The fourth is the fast talker. He shares the story of a 79-year-old woman who told an agent plainly she did not want annuities and was sold four contracts anyway by a fast talker a friend had recommended. An agent who does all the talking is not learning enough about you to recommend anything.

Take Your Time

Asked for one closing message, Stevenson keeps it short: take your time. Some of his clients spend three extra months comparing options, and he calls those the best three months they will spend, because the people who rush are often the ones who call him years later with regret.

No legitimate opportunity in this market disappears in a week, and an agent who makes you feel like it will is thinking about himself.

Brett closes with the line that sums up the episode: you spent 40 years pulling all this together. Don’t let it all run out in 25 minutes because you think you’re in a hurry. Saving for retirement and drawing income in retirement are two different skills, and this show exists to teach the second one.

You do not have to climb the mountain alone, and as this episode makes clear, a transparent, licensed guide costs you nothing extra. We spent 40 years teaching Americans how to fill the bucket. Nobody taught them how to turn on the tap without running it dry.

Want to take the next step? Run your own numbers with the free WIYN calculator at brettblake.annuity.com, which takes about three minutes.

Ready to talk it through? Book a Retirement Clarity Session with Brett. Not a sales call. Not a slide deck. Your numbers, not ours.

Worry Less. Live Longer.

About the host

Brett A. Blake hosts Safe Money Radio and is the CEO of Annuity.com. He is 58, a Harvard MBA who will tell you the degree taught him almost nothing about retirement income. Before Annuity.com, he helped scale a business to nearly $1 billion in annual sales. He lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife, Erin, and asks the questions every retiree would ask if they had access to the right rooms.

About the guest

John Stevenson is known as The Guaranteed Retirement Guy. A Certified Financial Fiduciary® and author of Guaranteed Retirement, he has spent more than 20 years helping Americans compare annuity options. He hosts The Guaranteed Retirement Guy show on YouTube and shows every client every payout option on the market, including the ones that pay him the least.

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Follow Brett A. Blake

LinkedIn: @brettblake | Retirement tools: brettblake.annuity.com | Email: brett.blake@annuity.com

Follow John Stevenson (Certified Financial Fiduciary® and Annuity Educator)

Website: johnstevenson.com | YouTube: @GuaranteedRetirementGuy | LinkedIn: John Stevenson

#RetirementIncome #Annuities #AnnuityEducation #GuaranteedIncome #FixedIndexAnnuity #RetirementPlanning #SafeMoneyRadio #JohnStevenson

DISCLAIMER:

Safe Money Radio is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. Products discussed may not be appropriate for everyone. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions. Product availability varies by state. Our Agents are licensed to sell insurance products, including annuity products that guarantee retirement income based on the financial strength of the insurance company providing the product. Annuities may not be suitable for everyone. Guarantees are not government-backed or provided by Annuity.com, Inc. Annuity.com, Inc. is a licensed insurance agency. National Producer Number (NPN): 21086345. Licensed in all states where required by law. Doing business in Florida and California as "Annuity.com Insurance Marketing," CA License No. 6013124. In New York, licensed as Annuity.com Insurance Solutions, License No. LA-1860109.

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