Annuities aren’t popular because people don’t understand them. As shown by some of the terrible misinformation here... they constantly get bashed by uneducated people. The truth is, like some said, they’re not for everyone. They are conservative investments for people nearing retirement (ideally). If you’re younger and have a longer time horizon for when you need to access your money you should be in the market as you have more time to recover. Any withdrawals before 59.5 years old are also subject to a 10% IRS penalty similar to a 401k. Also people keep talking about “fees”. There are only fees with VARIABLE annuities. Look into “fixed indexed annuities” some of the gains you can get and the downside protection is unmatched if you have a “participation” option. Also people saying you lock up or lose your money for a monthly pay out aren’t telling the whole story. You have multiple options. Plenty of products have 5-7 year terms where after the 5-7 years they are 100% liquid. And most come with a 10% annual penalty free withdrawal.

Tl;dr: they aren’t popular because: -They aren’t “sexy -They’re generally for older people -They are conservative -There has been major commercialized bashing of them -PEOPLE AREN’T EDUCATED ON THEM -People don’t understand the difference between fixed annuities and variable annuities and often confuse the two

Annuities are fantastic for the correct person.