US annuity sales totalled $107.4 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up 1% from a year earlier and the latest in a sustained run of quarterly sales above $100 billion, according to LIMRA's US Individual Annuity Sales Survey. The figures build on a record 2025, when full-year annuity sales rose 7% to $464.1 billion - the fourth consecutive annual record. Yet as the industry marks Annuity Awareness Month, LIMRA and LOMA's chief marketing officer argues the gap between retirement need and actual adoption has less to do with product design or market conditions than with how the products are presented and understood.
The first-quarter product breakdown tells a story about where consumers are gravitating in an uncertain rate environment. Registered index-linked annuities rose 20% year over year to $21.1 billion, and traditional variable annuities climbed 17% to $17.2 billion - both benefiting from demand for products that offer market participation with some downside protection. Single premium immediate annuities gained 22% to $3.7 billion and deferred income annuities rose 5% to $950 million.
The rate-sensitive fixed products told a different story. Fixed-rate deferred annuities fell 12% to $35.6 billion and fixed indexed annuities slipped 4% to $26.8 billion, reflecting consumers shifting away from products whose relative attractiveness diminishes as rate expectations become less certain.
"While economic conditions remain uncertain, consumers continue to prioritise financial protection and guaranteed income solutions as they prepare for retirement," said Bryan Hodgens, senior vice president and head of LIMRA research. "As investors navigate shifting market conditions and questions around the future path of interest rates, we expect demand for annuity products to remain elevated through 2026."
The more analytically interesting question is why record sales coexist with persistent under-adoption relative to the scale of retirement income need. Tina Beckwith, chief marketing officer of LIMRA and LOMA, addressed this directly in the organisation's June MarketFacts publication, identifying loss aversion, decision paralysis around complex products and an underestimation of longevity risk as primary barriers - none of which are addressed by additional product education. Beckwith made a specific counterintuitive observation: more consumer education can reinforce the perception that annuities are too complicated rather than reducing it.
Her recommended alternative is to reframe lifetime income around outcomes - describing the approach as a "personal pension" - rather than leading with technical features or rate comparisons. She called on carriers and advisors to standardise plain-language messaging and normalise partial allocation to guaranteed-income products, presenting annuities as one component of a retirement income plan rather than an all-or-nothing decision.
LIMRA has tied the multiyear sales run to what it calls Peak 65 - the period in which more than four million Americans turn 65 annually, many without pensions to cover basic retirement costs. That demographic pressure gives the adoption gap its practical urgency: the cohort most likely to need guaranteed lifetime income is arriving at retirement at scale, while behavioural barriers identified by Beckwith continue to limit the conversion of need into product uptake.
A House resolution introduced by Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) calls on federal, state and local entities to observe June as National Annuity Awareness Month and encourages savers to seek professional guidance on lifetime-income planning - a bipartisan signal that the retirement income gap is gaining recognition beyond the industry itself.
