They're not gambling their entire lifestyle on "hopefully the market cooperates."
They're engineering a floor—guaranteed income that covers the non-negotiables (housing, healthcare, insurance, the basics) no matter what the S&P does next Tuesday.
And that's where annuities enter the conversation.
Not the whole plan. Not "put everything in and hope."
But a strategic slice—the part that removes white-knuckle anxiety from your retirement.
Because the real risk isn't market volatility. It's sequence-of-returns risk—retiring into a crash and never recovering because you're forced to withdraw when everything's down.
That's the nightmare scenario annuities are designed to prevent.