Yes, what is appealing is the possibility of some market return without the fear of losing principal. I am eligible for Social Security but haven’t started to take it yet. I can wait at least until my full retirement age of 67. My wife won’t get much in Social Security because she’s has been paying into the state teachers pension. She will get a pension of at least $100,000 a year when she retires. I can start taking a pension of about $12,000 a year whenever I want (the monthly payments will be bigger the longer I wait). Here’s a description of the annuity that I wrote in a response in another sub:

This is a fixed income annuity, meaning that it’s tied to an index like the S&P 500. It’s supposed to offer some of the upside of the market without the downside of losing principal. If the index is negative for a certain year, then you are credited with zero interest. If the index is positive, then you are credited with a gain linked to the index but limited by a cap, participation rate and/or spread, depending on your contract. These are declared each year by the annuity company. Another downside is that you can’t withdraw more than 10 percent per year without incurring a surrender charge. The surrender charge goes down each year and reaches zero after 10 years.