A 26.74% decline in client acceptance odds for annuities suggests retirement-focused advisors should “flip the script” on standard planning conversations.
Standard planning conversation techniques may be working against advisors when they talk about annuities, according to new research from Jump that tracks real-world advisor-client meetings.
Based on data collected across 2025, the firm found that some of the most common approaches – explicitly linking annuities to clients’ stated goals, leaning on inflation-hedging language, or invoking other clients’ decisions – actually reduced the odds that a client would say yes to annuity purchases.
Goal-based alignment cut acceptance odds by 27%, while positioning annuities as an inflation defense reduced the odds by almost 20% “likely because clients questioned how fixed products could actually hedge inflation.” References to what “other clients” were doing chipped away at success rates as well, suggesting that appealing to social proof makes recommendations feel less personalized.
“These findings flip the script on standard financial planning conversations,” the report said.
At the same time, more directive, expert-anchored framing made clients more likely to follow through on an annuity recommendation. Default bias – presenting the annuity as the advisor’s recommended course of action – increased acceptance odds by 27%. Calling back to clients’ previous statements to encourage follow-through added 20%, while framing annuities as a way to stay in the market with downside protection added 9%.
“Our data shows that more advisors succeeded when they suggested concrete actions (‘this is what you should do’) rather than softer, unstructured advice (‘let’s explore how this fits your goals.’),” according to the report, whose insights on annuities were supported by the American College for Financial Services. “Clients wanted expertise and direction, not collaboration.”
That behavioral twist sits on top of already muted annuity engagement. Jump’s analysis found that “annuities do not come up as frequently as one might think, appearing in just 27% of meetings (20% discussed, 7.5% positioned).” Even when advisors moved from discussion to a formal recommendation, only 46% of clients agreed to invest.
When advisors did broach the topic, the product mix tilted heavily toward downside protection. Fixed indexed annuities made up 56% of recommendations, far outpacing traditional fixed annuities at 13% and registered index-linked annuities at 9%.
Variable annuities and income-focused contracts each accounted for less than 8% of recommendations. As the report puts it, “the pattern is clear: advisors gravitated toward products offering downside protection with growth potential rather than products explicitly designed for lifetime income.”
Registered index-linked annuities posted the highest acceptance rate at 57%, with fixed indexed and fixed annuities close behind. Income-oriented products struggled: single premium immediate annuities saw only 19% acceptance, and deferred income annuities 36%.
In a year of market volatility, the data suggest clients were on the whole more interested in cushioning losses than locking in lifetime income – and more responsive to advisors who told them what to do, rather than asking them how they felt.
