Question on SPIA's I Think I Know the Answer To...

[rivdogg]

If someone over 59 1/2 has a SPIA that is either a life or period certain can they roll/exchange that money to anything else? Cash it out?

Thanks in advance

 

[bluemarlin08]

You can sell it to a third party for a substantial discount.

 

[Larry Tew]

No. It was bought specifically as an income stream. You can annuitize a deferred annuity, but there is no way to go the other direction unless (as posted) you sell it for a discounted lump sum.

 

[BNTRS]

If they are healthy, there might be someone willing to take the bet that they will live past life expetency and buy them out at a NPV with a life death at life expectancy assumption, if does live past life expectancy might have gotten a little screwed (depends on why they would want a lump sum at the moment), but you got to watch the dicount rate.

If you are working with a period certain product, again NPV buy out is possible from someone, but again got to be careful about discounting. If this was an annuitized product from a while ago it might be very unreasonable to make this move, since interest rate assumptions might be much higher than current rates.

If this was a recent move, might be more prudent to wait for rates to rise again, and then look for a buyer, as they'll have to work with assumed rates higher than the ones likely used to determine that income stream.

This is all very hypothetical, and I hope we're talking about a fair amount of money, otherwise it's not likely worth any time worrying about.