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1 A variable annuity is an insurance contract and includes underlying investments whose value is tied to market performance. When markets are up, you can capture the gains, but you may also experience losses when markets are down.
5 Converting some or all of your savings to income benefits (referred to as “annuitization”) is a permanent decision. Once income benefit payments have begun, you are unable to change to another option.
variable annuities can play an important role in that plan, offering monthly income for the rest of your life with the opportunity to see your income grow—along with the choice to continue payments to others.1
1 A variable annuity is an insurance contract and includes underlying investments whose value is tied to market performance. When markets are up, you
can capture the gains, but you may also experience losses when markets are down.
Once retirement capital is converted to lifetime income benefits (”annuitization") and payments begin, you cannot change to another payment option. But you retain lifelong agency over the underlying investments accounts whose value is tied to market performance. As many as 283 accounts.
delivering income designed to keep pace with inflation
Grosse point capital management provides bespoke fee-based advice, sales, underwriting and compliance support in this unique segment of the retirement landscape, with bespoke integration for those approaching or enjoying retirement withbased on their unique goals and risk tolerance.
Retirement income decisions are often permanent, yet most investors receive little guidance on the complex world of variable annuities and lifetime income planning. Our specialized approach combines independent advice, product expertise, underwriting support, and compliance oversight to help you evaluate your options with confidence before making irrevocable retirement income elections.
Whether you are considering annuitization, reviewing an existing contract, or seeking to maximize retirement income while maintaining investment flexibility, Grosse Pointe Capital Management provides personalized guidance tailored to your goals, risk tolerance, and legacy objectives. Schedule a consultation to discover how a customized retirement income strategy can help secure your financial future.
What to Know
Payment Certainty. Purchasing Power Uncertainty.
Retirement doesn't end inflation—it simply shifts who bears the risk. While fixed lifetime income provides payment certainty, it cannot guarantee that those payments will maintain their purchasing power throughout retirement.
A $1,000 monthly payment purchased in January 2020, immediately before the highest inflation surge in more than forty years, had the purchasing power of approximately $785 by the beginning of 2026.
Professionally managed variable lifetime income takes a different approach by combining guaranteed lifetime payments with continued participation in the capital markets. While future payments fluctuate with investment performance and are not guaranteed to increase, they have the opportunity to grow over time—helping address one of retirement's greatest long-term financial risks: the erosion of purchasing power.
onger Lives. Lasting Income.
One of retirement's greatest uncertainties isn't how the markets will perform—it's how long your income will be needed. As life expectancy continues to increase, retirement income may need to support twenty-five, thirty, or even forty years of spending.
Variable annuitization transfers longevity risk to an insurance company while preserving professionally managed market participation. Through mortality credits, retirees who live longer continue receiving guaranteed lifetime income—an economic benefit that investment portfolios alone cannot create.
Consider the longevity probabilities for 65-year-olds in average health:
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Most men are expected to live beyond age 86; most women beyond age 89.
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Approximately one in four men will live beyond age 92; one in four women beyond age 94.
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About one in ten opposite-sex couples can expect at least one spouse to reach age 100.
Longer lives require more than larger portfolios—they require a retirement income strategy designed to last as long as you do.
nflation
How will your capital keep pace with the cost of living?
Inflation changes what it takes to maintain your standard of living. Housing, healthcare, travel, and everyday expenses can rise at different rates, while economic conditions and government policy can influence the broader inflation environment. A sound financial strategy considers how your capital and income may need to grow over time to maintain—or exceed—your purchasing power.
Longevity
How long will your resources need to work?
Retirement may last 20 years, 30 years, or longer. The length of your life affects when you retire, how much income you need, how your capital is invested, and how much flexibility you may need along the way. It also brings uncertainty about future needs—including the possibility of changing health, care needs, or other expenses later in life. Considering different possible lengths of life helps ensure that today's decisions
Financial Planning
Planning for the real.
Good ideas are only the beginning. What matters is how they fit the realities of your life—and how well they are implemented.
We bring experience, judgment, and modern financial planning technology together to help you understand your choices, test alternatives, and make decisions with greater clarity and confidence.
We incorporate current holdings into our analysis and consider how they contribute to the portfolio as a whole. When changes are recommended, we evaluate their broader implications, including the potential tax consequences.
A broader investment perspective
Stocks and bonds are the foundation of many portfolios, but they are not necessarily the entire opportunity set.
We consider real estate, infrastructure, commodities, private equity, hedge funds, and other alternative investments when their expected return, risk, diversification, liquidity, cost, and complexity justify a role in the portfolio.
A broader opportunity set can create additional sources of return and diversification, but only when an investment's characteristics add value relative to what is already in the portfolio. The objective is not simply to add investments. It is to give the portfolio more ways to pursue its objectives.
Research-driven investing
We use factor-based strategies where financial research supports their potential contribution to expected return and diversification.
Factors such as value, size, profitability, momentum, and carry provide additional dimensions for portfolio construction. Financial research has identified these characteristics as potential sources of expected return and diversification, which can help us construct portfolios with more deliberate exposures to the drivers of risk and return.
Fixed income, efficiently diversified
Fixed income can provide diversification, income, liquidity, and a source of stability within a portfolio.
We favor broad diversification across credit and duration exposures rather than relying on narrow or highly specialized strategies. This can provide diversification efficiently while minimizing the investment expense required to achieve the portfolio's objectives.
Evidence, applied with judgment.
Investing is not about finding the investment that performed best yesterday.
It is about evaluating what may reasonably earn a place in the portfolio tomorrow, given expected return, risk, diversification, cost, taxes, liquidity, and how each investment fits within the portfolio as a whole.
We bring analysis to those choices, explain the alternatives, and provide the perspective needed to make informed decisions.
Estate Planning
Wealth has a destination.
Growing and protecting wealth includes understanding the value of the capital you've built and preparing for what happens to it next. We help shape estate strategies that preserve wealth, provide liquidity, address tax considerations, access business value, and align wealth transfer with your intentions.
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Footnotes ¹ All guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. ² U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Inflation data are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). October 2025 data were unavailable due to a lapse in federal appropriations. Calculations by Grosse Pointe Capital Management (GPCM). ³ American Academy of Actuaries & Society of Actuaries Research Institute. (2026). Actuaries Longevity Illustrator—Terms of Use and Disclosures. https://longevityillustrator.org. ⁴ Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1), 2025, Table B.101.h, Household Balance Sheet; Table L.122, Life Insurance Companies. The Federal Reserve notes variable annuity assets as "variable annuity mutual funds."
Insurance
Transfer risks that capital alone cannot manage.
Transfer risks that capital alone cannot manage.
Some risks are unlikely to occur but unacceptable to retain. We consider insurance as a financial tool, evaluating the risk transferred, guarantees, costs, and available options in the context of your goals, risk tolerance, and broader financial strategy.
