Education Center
Retirement education built around the decisions you face
A major learning destination from NFI Retirement Academy -- plain-English paths for income you can count on, protecting money from market losses, fixed indexed annuities, long-term care, life insurance, estate coordination, business owners, and advanced planning.
Centerpiece
What are you trying to solve?
Choose the decision that feels most urgent. Each path leads to focused education -- not a wall of unrelated articles.
Create retirement income I can count on
Turn savings into a clearer retirement paycheck plan with floors, withdrawals, and lasting income concepts.
Protect some of my retirement money from market losses
Protected-money vs. market-risk roles, sequence risk, and insurance-based protection concepts -- with tradeoff honesty.
Understand fixed indexed annuities
What an FIA is, how crediting works, tax deferral basics, and what it is not.
Prepare for long-term-care costs
Cost risk, Medicare limits, family caregiving, and strategy categories -- without fear-mongering.
Protect my family with life insurance
Protection vs. cash-value roles, beneficiaries, and living benefits at a high level.
Organize my trust, estate and legacy planning
Wills, trusts, beneficiaries, and incapacity documents -- education and coordination, not legal advice.
Plan around my business
Key-person risk, buy-sell basics, and succession funding -- education, not recruiting.
Explore advanced planning strategies
Premium-finance literacy and related concepts -- qualification-gated strategies explained carefully, not pitched.
Browse by topic
Topic pathways
Six cornerstone guides are available now. Additional topic pathways are coming soon.
Retirement income
Income vs. accumulation, Social Security floors, sequence risk, and lasting income.
02Annuities / FIA
Crediting, caps, liquidity, riders, tax deferral, and who may or may not fit.
03Lifetime income
Longevity risk, income riders, and careful research framing.
04Annuity myths and facts
Myth vs. fact cards, compensation education, and balanced answers.
05Long-term care
Cost risk, Medicare limits, and strategy categories.
06Trusts and estate
General education -- consult a qualified attorney for documents.
Protecting assets
Coming soon
Life insurance
Coming soon
Business owners
Coming soon
Advanced planning
Coming soon
Research and insights
Coming soon
Legacy
Coming soon
Core teaching concepts
Protected money and market-risk money
Many households assign different jobs to different dollars. This is a planning concept -- not a recommendation to move any specific amount.
Featured research
Research and retirement insights
Industry and academic context helps you ask better questions. It does not decide what fits your household.
LIMRA
Industry context
U.S. annuity sales in Q2 2026 -- a quarterly record (LIMRA). 11th consecutive quarter above $100B; H1 2026 $231.3B first-half record.
FIA Q2: $30.7B (up 14% QoQ; down 7% YoY). SPIA Q2: $4.0B quarterly record. Survey ~84% of market. Record demand answers "why are Americans looking?" -- not personal suitability.
Source: LIMRA news release, July 27, 2026. Note 2026 sales-definition change when citing totals.
First-half 2026: $231.3 billion (first-half record). Also the 11th consecutive quarter above $100 billion.
Definition note: Beginning with the January 2026 report, LIMRA defines sales as all money paid into an individual annuity (new and existing contracts), including internal transfers/exchanges per LIMRA's note. Preliminary survey (~84% of U.S. annuity market).
NBER Working Paper 35082
Lifetime income and longevity research
Recent NBER research (Working Paper 35082, 2026) using data from nearly 600,000 Chilean retirees examined whether choosing lifetime annuity income rather than phased withdrawals affected longevity and reported evidence of lower mortality among retirees induced into annuitization by the studyâs research design. This is a working paper about Chileâs system â not proof that buying an annuity will make an individual U.S. retiree live longer.
2026 working paper (not peer-reviewed journal publication). Chileâs system; not U.S. proof. Full framing and DOI: lifetime income guide.
Your path
From learning to appropriate solutions
Education first. When you want help putting the pieces together, a planning conversation is available. Strategies such as annuities, life insurance, or long-term-care protection may be discussed when they fit your situation -- not because everyone needs a product.
Academy connection
Learn the way seminar attendees learn
These Education Center pages extend the same plain-English teaching style used in NFI Retirement Academy seminars -- so you can study at your own pace, then decide whether a conversation or upcoming seminar helps.
Sources and further reading
- LIMRA â U.S. annuity sales set new quarterly record totaling $123.9 billion in Q2 2026 (Jul 27, 2026): LIMRA news release. Industry demand context only â not personal suitability.
- Larrain, B., Previtero, A., & Severino, F. (2026). The Effect of Annuities on Longevity. NBER Working Paper 35082. https://doi.org/10.3386/w35082 · NBER listing. Chileâs pension system differs from the U.S.; not proof an annuity extends an individual U.S. retireeâs life.
- Cross-links: Retirement income planning, How lifetime income works.
