"Investment, insurance and annuity products

[Skidmore]

are not FDIC insured, are not bank guaranteed, are not bank deposits, are not insured by any federal goeernment agency, are not a condition to any banking service or activity, and may lose value.

Investment products may be subject to market and other risk factors."

That disclaimer just makes my heart sink everytime I see it on communications from the retirement plan which vested my contributions decades ago. Before that happened, we had a simple pension plan available. Then we were told we needed to choose a portfolio. Thus began the long crap shoot. Do we let the money ride or do we take more risk? My heart sinks even more when I think of the political gamble that comes with possibly losing Social Security. How do you do your life over again?

Big stakes.

[senseandsensibility]

1. Thom Hartmann says

essentially the same thing. He said he doesn't have any of those products.

[Skidmore]

2. We were required to participate in

the retirement plan.

[SheilaT]

3. Are they totally locked in?

Can you not switch the investments to something else?

I don't quite understand all the negativity towards annuities. I have a couple of annuities as part of my investments, and they are doing remarkably well. I expect to start taking income from them in no more than five years, and it will be a pleasant supplement to my Social Security check and my tiny pension.

[Skidmore]

4. My retirement account has been vested for a long time.

It is a portfolio of stocks, annuities, and bonds. We were required to vest at five years of employment. I cannot take out money or move it around easily, only add and I am unemployed right now. What if both were to disappear? It is a thought that has come to me more and more.

[SheilaT]

5. My understanding of being vested is that you now own all

of the money that's there. You might want to have a talk with someone who is connected with the retirement stuff at that company, or with some sort of investment advisor.

From personal experience: I had a 403b plan (because I was working for a non-profit), was vested, then left the job. It was a very straightforward thing to get the account transferred to my investment person, who then invested that money (not very much, I hasten to add) in an entirely different set of things.

You should be in no way locked into however that money is already invested, other than possibly an annuity, but even if you have one, make the company send you information, call and talk to representatives, and make sure you understand exactly what is going on.

As for other sorts of investments, mutual funds and the like, you should be able to put that money into the mutual fund of your choice. You don't actually need an investment person for this.

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. I find this very difficult to believe;

I cannot take out money or move it around easily, only add

The fact that you have the impression of the part about not being able to take it out, though inaccurate, is understandable, but the moving it around?

If what you have is a 401(k) then you are absolutely able to make changes to the investments, just how often without a surcharge is the question. The answer to that can be gotten from the plan administrator. Some company, be it Fidelity or Vanguard or some firm is the administrator /custodian and that information can be gotten from the company HR department (your former employer).

As far as taking money out, if it is a 401(k) and you have left the firm you CAN take the money out, you are just hit with a penalty from the IRS and the amount you take out is now taxable. The reason for the penalty and the tax hit is the IRS wants to encourage you to leave the money in there until you are at least 59 1/2. After that, provided you are no longer with the firm, you can take withdrawals as you wish though it is still taxable, as it hasn't been taxed yet (unless it is a Roth account of some kind).

Since you don't define exactly what kind of retirement account it is, I can't be more specific, but suffice to say, it's YOUR money and they can't keep it from you.

You said in your post above;

It is a portfolio of stocks, annuities, and bonds. We were required to vest at five years of employment.

It should be understood that vesting is not something YOU do or are "required" to do, rather that is when the money the company has added to your account, through a match or whatever, is now considered yours. Also, inside your annuities are Mutual Funds generally, which can also be changed if you wish. All this information is available to you in the statements you get from the custodian firm.

In your OP you mention a "Simple Pension". I think you might be very surprised indeed if you were to look at the investments the pension fund holds in it's portfolio. Most large pension funds invest in asset classes that vary from individual stocks to writing covered calls on those stocks to currency swaps to commodities futures contracts to bonds, both domestic and international and everything in between. Pensions are not some magical, ultra safe retirement device that makes money magically appear. They invest in such a way as to provide enough growth in the fund to meet the obligations it has.

The language you quote from the Annuity company is standard boilerplate language. The fact is, if the insurance company that sold the annuity is a large and well known one, you really don't have that much to worry about.

[NobodyHere]

6. Just invest in stocks when a Democrat is president

Then you'll be fine

[Kang Colby]

7. What do you do?

You read up on retirement investing. Bogleheads. Set an asset allocation that aligns with your risk appetite, and then you ignore it unless its time to rebalance. This doesn't require a deep understanding of finance, economics, or math.

Pensions aren't nor were they magical risk free investments. Plenty of pensions went up in smoke over the last century. The largest pension plans in the world invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, and so on. The average person can easily invest in index funds in some balance between stocks and bonds that should allow them to sleep at night.