Your Income Options
The annuities in your retirement plan offer a variety of income options, described in this Annuity Options tableOpens dialog. One or more may be right for your financial needs.
Please note that not all options are available with all plans or contracts. Be sure to read Getting Started to learn more about when to consider different income choices.
Your retirement plan may also include mutual funds. When you retire, you may want to move those assets to an annuity to ensure income for life or you may access the money youve accumulated through one-time and/or systematic withdrawals and through RMD. Refer to the contract section below for more details.
Retirement Plan Contracts
The annuities assets in your retirement plan are in a product, or contract, that your employer has chosen for the plan. Each contract has different features.
What contract do I have? You can determine which contract(s) you have by logging in to your account from tiaa.org and expanding the View Contracts link underneath your plan name.
View the Retirement Plan Contracts tableOpens dialog to see which flexible income options are available to you.
Flexibility
You can choose from the spectrum of flexible income options outlined above to create your own income plan. You can convert portions of your assets at different times – some now, some later – determine the frequency and/or amount of your payments, and you can combine different income options to suit your unique needs.
As you prepare for the future, you may want to consider including a combination of annuities in your income plan. With a fixed annuity such as TIAA Traditional, you can cover your essential expenses such as housing, utilities and food by converting a portion of your assets to an income you cannot outlive. Assets in a variable annuity can be converted to lifetime income or withdrawn as needed for discretionary or unexpected expenses at a later time. This can give you the flexibility to adapt your income plan as your needs change over time.
In addition to the flexibility built in to TIAA's income options, you even have some flexibility once you convert assets to a stream of income. For example, you can make transfers between annuity accounts, with some restrictions, in response to changing market conditions or inflation.
Income For as Long as You Live
With TIAA, you can turn a portion of your accumulation into lifetime annuity income – a choice most plan investment options cannot provide. The amount of your lifetime income payments can be steady and reliable through a fixed annuity, such as TIAA Traditional, or the lifetime income payments may vary upwards or downwards if you choose one of TIAA's Variable Annuities, giving you the potential for income growth and the ability to keep pace with inflation. You could also choose a combination of both fixed and variable payments.