If some day you do reach the happy position of achieving your retirement savings objectives, you can reduce stress even further by putting some of that money into a low-cost annuity that will guarantee you a certain level of income for the rest of your life (options that cover a surviving spouse, or are indexed for inflation, are available but reduce annual income).

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The fees typically raise the already-high cost of a variable annuity to an average of almost 3.5% of assets per year, according to Morningstar.

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This will also affect the cost of buying an annuity.

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On the other hand, if the employer is asleep at the switch and simply outsources investment decision-making regarding the plan to, say, an insurance company, the investment options will almost certainly be wrapped in a high-cost, high-risk variable annuity.

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These cost a small fortune to create, are a veritable annuity to attorneys and accountants in administration fees, and tend to keep the bequeathed funds from the charitable beneficiaries.

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