If you are approaching the age of retirement you may be considering the options you have to produce an income for you and your family. If you are not really interested in playing the stock market or investing in dividends and stocks there are other financial vehicles that will help you reach your goals. Annuities are financial arrangements where you invest X amount of dollars and your receive X amount of dollars every month for a certain period of time.
If you decide you would rather purchase structured settlements than invest in stocks you need to be aware of the different types of annuities out there. There are annuities that do not continue to pay after you pass, but those are reserved usually for people have won the settlement in court.
If you are setting up an account for yourself you will want to ensure payments to you, your spouse if you pass and then on to any other beneficiaries. Make sure you name any beneficiaries before you die as you will want to avoid any confusion later, you may need to consult a trust lawyer to make out a living will for that.
The company you will want to find will be an annuity company and not a structured settlement company. While the funding for these two vehicles are almost identical they are set up in very different ways. Where a settlement company will want to set rules in play that turn the money back to you if you die, an annuity firm will want to set structures that allow you to receive the maximum benefits.
Make sure your payments are set equal to the amount of bills you have and be sure to consider inflation in the projected budget. You can schedule payments to come to you every month, every two weeks, each quarter or once a year. Because you will be moving to a fixed income I would suggest making the payments come to you every month so you can more properly budget.
