Jason Caudill, Co Founder
Annuities have long been difficult for consumers to evaluate. Every carrier presents rates, guarantees and product features differently, making apples to apples comparison nearly impossible. My Annuity Store was built to solve that problem. The digital platform brings together live product data, comparison tools and educational resources in one place, giving consumers a clearer path through one of retirement’s most complex decisions.
At the center of the platform is a normalized multi carrier database — a single source of truth that standardizes product information across more than 90 insurance companies and 1,500 annuities. Real time APIs update interest rates as carriers change their offerings, while interactive tools help visitors understand how each product works. Traffic to the platform has grown roughly 300 percent since the beginning of the year, reflecting increasing demand for transparent, consumer driven annuity research.
“We just like helping people, and the technology is making it a lot easier,” says Jason Caudill, Co Founder.
Turning Complex Products into Clear Choices
My Annuity Store’s platform is designed around individual circumstances rather than generic examples. Visitors can enter their age, state and investment amount to receive live quotes tailored to their situation. Guided decision tools help identify whether they are primarily seeking accumulation, immediate income or future income. The platform then generates actual product quotes — the same numbers consumers would typically only see after speaking with an advisor.
Users can also compare up to three products side by side, reviewing rates, guarantees, surrender schedules and income features in a unified format. Calculators support fixed annuities, immediate annuities and future income scenarios, giving consumers multiple ways to evaluate their options.
Artificial intelligence adds another layer of clarity. My Annuity Store’s AI assistant is trained on the company’s proprietary database, carrier brochures, rate feeds and document library — not generic internet data. It can answer questions about product details, state specific rates and carrier offerings with cited information drawn directly from the platform’s maintained resources.
The company also provides financial information and AM Best ratings for 791 insurance companies, along with a downloadable library of more than 300 carrier brochures. For consumers, it is a rare opportunity to access comprehensive product and carrier information without navigating multiple websites or sales funnels.
Transparency as a Business Model
My Annuity Store takes a different approach to consumer engagement. Instead of requiring contact information before providing useful material, the platform allows visitors to research products freely. Carrier brochures, rate information and educational resources are available without mandatory registration.
That philosophy extends to compensation. Individual product pages publicly disclose commissions — a level of transparency uncommon in the annuity industry. Buyers can see how the company earns revenue before deciding whether to engage.
“Clients shouldn’t have to be a lead before they can learn,” Caudill says. “We prefer they learn everything before they call us, and the more they can learn, the easier it is for us.”
The approach appears to be resonating. Average visitor sessions have grown from roughly 90 seconds several years ago to nearly five minutes today, suggesting that consumers are spending more time researching and working through the information available on the platform.
Education Before Recommendation
Annuities can be confusing, and misunderstandings often lead to costly mistakes. My Annuity Store frequently encounters consumers who have misinterpreted key contract features before making a purchase.
One retiree believed she was earning a guaranteed eight percent annual return after attending a sales seminar. A review revealed that the figure applied to an income base used to calculate future lifetime withdrawals — not her actual account value. The distinction may sound technical, but it fundamentally changes how the annuity works and what the customer can expect.
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Clients shouldn't have to be a lead before they can learn. We prefer they learn everything before they call us and the more they can learn the easier it is for us.
Similar confusion arises when historical illustrations for indexed annuities are mistaken for guaranteed future returns, or when caps and spreads are misunderstood as guaranteed rates. My Annuity Store helps consumers distinguish between hypothetical scenarios and contractual guarantees before they commit to a product.
The company’s experience across carriers also helps it catch details that can be easy to overlook, including state premium taxes and differences in carrier service levels. Some carriers are more responsive than others when customers need withdrawals or contract servicing — practical knowledge that can meaningfully affect a retiree’s experience.
The result is deeper trust and repeat engagement. Approximately 44 percent of customers have returned for additional business, and one client has purchased 24 annuities through the platform over time. For My Annuity Store, that repeat business reflects a model built around ongoing service rather than one time transactions.
Building the Next Layer of the Platform
Automation is central to the company’s next phase of development. My Annuity Store already offers a client portal that supports certain interactions and email communication, and the team is working to automate more of the customer journey. The goal is to provide more resources without removing human assistance when customers need it.
Indexed annuities remain a particular challenge because their complexity can make them difficult to explain online. Making these products easier for older consumers and retirees to understand is one of the company’s priorities. The focus is shifting from simply providing more information to presenting it in clearer, more intuitive ways.
Interactive learning experiences, educational courses, quizzes, videos and more personalized guidance are among the ideas being explored. The aim is to help consumers learn more, understand more, and ask better questions before speaking with an advisor.
This commitment to clarity, transparency and consumer empowerment is what earned My Annuity Store recognition as Insurance Business Review’s Top Multi Carrier Annuity Platform 2026. As the platform continues to evolve, it is helping shape what modern annuity research should look like: transparent, data driven, and built around the consumer.
Making Annuity Comparison More Transparent
Rate comparisons are only useful when they show a contract the buyer can actually purchase. Annuity pricing can differ by state and term, and rider costs and benefits can make two products that look alike quite different in practice. Showing a headline rate without the details of the product may make the first search easier, but it does not give buyers enough information to decide.
Breadth also matters, since choosing an annuity is rarely about evaluating a single carrier. A useful platform should allow an executive or adviser to review options from multiple insurers without having to start the research process over each time. The goal is not simply to offer more products. What matters is whether the platform can use actual eligibility factors to narrow the options and make the remaining choices easier to assess.
Keeping information up to date is just as important. Fixed annuity rates change, and state availability can change the numbers a buyer sees. Static pages can create extra work when a quoted rate has changed before the decision reaches final review. Live or regularly updated data helps avoid that problem. The better platforms also give buyers access to the product documents behind the numbers, so they can review the details of an offer without having to request basic information separately.
Research becomes more important once the discussion moves beyond simple fixed-rate products. Income riders and indexed crediting methods can be easy to misunderstand when they are reduced to a quote screen. A credible platform needs to explain the difference between cash value and benefit-base mechanics, while also giving buyers enough detail to see how product terms affect what they want to use the product for. The tools should help buyers make informed decisions, not make the decision for them.
Service design is worth looking at too. Self-service research gets frustrating when users have to leave the platform every time they want more information about a product. Keeping the research and quoting in one place makes the process easier, while still giving users access to licensed guidance when they need it. Buyers should be able to come back to research they have already done instead of starting the same comparisons again. That is especially useful when an annuity decision takes place over several sessions or when rates change during the review.
Transparency in the sales process matters as well. Lead-generation models can turn basic research into a handoff before the buyer is ready to speak with someone. That can create friction and make it harder to know whether a recommendation reflects broad product access or a narrower sales path. Giving buyers access to brochures and carrier information before contact is more than a convenience. It gives them time to understand the product before entering a sales conversation.
The best fit is a platform that gives buyers access to a wide range of carriers and up-to-date product information, while still allowing them to decide how they want to do their research. My Annuity Store takes this approach with multi-carrier rate access, product comparisons, self-service calculators, and brochure access. It can also return state-specific quotes before a conversation begins. My Annuity Store makes commission information visible on product pages, giving buyers another piece of context before they decide to engage. Its research-first structure is particularly relevant for buyers who want to compare annuity options before involving an adviser.
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