The Retirement Income Story Isn’t Just About Annuities

What the Global Atlantic 2025 Outlook Reveals for Overlooked Housing Wealth

The recently released Global Atlantic 2025 Retirement Outlook Survey offers a revealing snapshot of how today’s near- and post-retirees are thinking about income, risk, and financial security. While the survey is often cited in the context of annuity adoption, the underlying data tells a broader and highly relevant story for professionals who understand the ways that housing wealth should be included in their plans.

At its core, the survey highlights growing concerns about income durability, market exposure, and rising costs in retirement. These concerns aren’t product specific. They are structural. And they point directly to the same planning gaps that retirement mortgage solutions are designed to address.

The Real Fear: Income That Doesn’t Last

According to the survey, most retirees worry that their income may not last their lifetime. Social Security confidence remains low, and traditional investment portfolios are increasingly viewed as vulnerable to volatility and sequence-of-returns risk. Nine in ten respondents cite inflation, healthcare costs, and market swings as top financial stressors.

This is precisely why the inclusion of annuity solutions has exploded in recent years. Retirees want predictability. They want income they can’t outlive. But annuities are not the only tool capable of addressing longevity risk, and in many cases, they are not the most flexible one.

Protection Matters More Than Performance

Another key finding from the survey is that only about half of respondents feel adequately protected against market downturns. That insight is critical. It signals a shift away from growth-first thinking toward risk-managed income planning.

For financial professionals who understand total balance sheet planning for retirees, this should sound familiar.

Specifically, reverse mortgage proceeds, whether accessed as a line of credit, tenure payment, or strategic reserve, are not tied to market performance. They provide liquidity without forcing retirees to sell depressed assets or disrupt long-term investment strategies. In other words, they solve the same problem retirees are trying to address with annuities: protection from downside risk.

Inflation and Healthcare Are Driving Demand for Flexibility

The survey underscores that inflation and healthcare costs are the dominant retirement concerns. Fixed income alone rarely keeps pace with these pressures. What retirees increasingly need is adaptive income, the ability to draw more when costs rise and less when they don’t.

This is where reverse mortgage solutions should be analyzed along with traditional income tools. Unlike rigid payout structures, these solutions allow for home equity to be accessed strategically, on demand, and in coordination with other income sources. It is not an all-or-nothing decision. It is a planning resource.

Social Security Uncertainty Is Creating an Income Gap

With a significant percentage of respondents expressing concern about the long-term reliability of Social Security, the survey reinforces a simple truth: many retirees will face an income gap that must be filled from somewhere else.

Annuities could be a good option. If the client owns a home, their home equity could be another good option.

A reverse mortgage solution could allow retirees to supplement income without increasing taxable distributions, without liquidating portfolios in down markets, and without taking on mandatory monthly payments. That combination is increasingly aligned with how retirees want to live and how advisors want to plan.

The Bigger Takeaway for Loan Professionals with Strategic Advisor Relationships

The most important insight from the Global Atlantic survey is not about annuities specifically. It is about what retirees value:

• Income that lasts
• Protection from volatility
• Flexibility in the face of rising costs
• Confidence that their plan will hold up under stress

Those priorities are not owned by any specific product category but rather should be part of a holistic plan for each specific client.

For mortgage loan officers, this data reinforces a critical positioning shift: reverse mortgages are not niche solutions or last-resort products. They are strategic income and risk-management tools that belong in the same conversation as annuities, pensions, and portfolio withdrawals.

Final Thought

The retirement income conversation is evolving. Clients are not only asking, “How do I grow my money?” They are asking, “How do I make sure it lasts?”

The Global Atlantic 2025 Retirement Outlook Survey makes that clear. And for loan officers who understand how to connect home equity to those concerns, the opportunity is not just relevance, it’s leadership.