
Retirement has changed. Help sponsors meet the moment.
Evolving retirement landscape
Plan consultants have a unique opportunity to help employers bolster retirement plans.
A new era in plan design
Your expert guidance can reshape plan design.

Employers want to help employees save during their working years and retire with security, but the typical target-date fund can only go so far. Today, employers are increasingly considering guaranteed assets—usually fixed annuities—for their retirement plans.1 So if you aren’t talking to your clients about this yet, someone else is.
80%
of employers are actively considering adding a fixed annuity to their plans.2
40%
plan to add an annuity in the next two years.2
Guaranteed assets like fixed annuities can solve the challenges employers want to address.

Market volatility
Employees face market swings while saving and investing. A guaranteed asset that steadily grows provides portfolio protection no matter what the market does.1

Longer lives
Longer lifespans, more active retirements and higher debt levels mean that even strong savers risk depleting assets too quickly and outliving their savings.

Default insufficiency
Until recently, regulatory barriers limited target-date portfolios from including annuities as guaranteed assets to provide retirement income. New regulations allow annuities on a plan’s menu.
Plans for the future
Upgrade plans and build custom portfolios with TIAA Traditional.*
TIAA Traditional helps address plan weaknesses in both the saving and retirement phases. Within portfolios, it provides steady, guaranteed growth and functions as a powerful complement to bonds. And retirees who opt to annuitize will receive regular, guaranteed retirement checks for life.3
*Issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), New York, NY.
TIAA Traditional strengthens investment portfolios.
Capital protection
TIAA Traditional is a guaranteed asset that won’t lose value like bond funds can, providing protection against market risk.1,4
Better risk-adjusted returns
TIAA Traditional has delivered returns comparable to bond funds with a much smoother ride.4
More diversification
With low historical correlations to all major asset classes, TIAA Traditional is a valuable portfolio diversifier.

TIAA Traditional bolsters bonds.
Tiaa traditional in the saving years
TIAA Traditional can improve a portfolio’s stability, reduce its risk and has often outperformed bonds.4
Increased resilience
Fortifies investment portfolios.
Because it’s a guaranteed asset and delivers always-positive returns, TIAA Traditional has historically acted as a portfolio ballast. And there’s never any obligation to convert the balance into guaranteed income (in other words, annuitize).5
TIAA Traditional guarantees consistently positive returns, while bond returns fluctuate

Growth of $10,000 over 30 years. For illustrative purposes.
Decreased volatility
A smoother ride than bonds.
Bond funds can fluctuate dramatically and can lose money. In contrast, TIAA Traditional’s returns have been similar to those of the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index—but without the volatility, which can affect the spending power of retired and soon-to-retire workers.4
Monthly returns of TIAA Traditional vs bonds
Choose a TIAA Traditional contract
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Improved results
Often better results than bonds alone.

Independent research from Charles River Associates suggests including allocations to TIAA Traditional within the target date glide path improves the risk/return profile.6 It also tends to increase the likelihood of achieving bigger balances at retirement.7
This research analyzed 27 scenarios across different risk profiles and rolling time periods across a span of neary 50 years. Each scenario was run with, and without, TIAA Traditional included in the glidepath. When TIAA Traditional was included, it replaced part of the bond allocation in varying proportions.
63% of the time, target-date glide paths that included TIAA Traditional outperformed those that didn’t.8
Better risk-return
An unmatched risk-return proposition.
Demonstrating a lower correlation to all other major asset classes can help diversify investment portfolios and enhance risk-adjusted returns

June 2006-2024
|
U.S. equities |
Non-U.S. equities |
U.S. fixed income |
U.S short term fixed income |
TIPS |
TIAA Traditional RC |
TIAA Traditional RCP |
Annualized total return | 10.28% | 4.08% | 3.14% | 1.92% | 3.3% | 4.37% | 3.62% |
Annualized standard deviation | 16.06% | 17.46% | 4.27% | 1.44% | 4.61 | 0.13% | 0.14% |
Sharpe ratio | 0.6 | 0.23 | 0.41 | 0.36 | 0.41 | 5.86 | 4.49 |
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. As of 12/24. U.S. Equities: Russell 3000 Index; Non-U.S. Equities: MSCI ACWI ex-USA IMI Index; U.S. Fixed Income: Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index; U.S. Short-Term Fixed Income: Bloomberg U.S. Govt/Credit 1-3 Yr Index; TIPs: Bloomberg U.S. TrsyInflNote 1-10Y TR USD; TIAA Traditional RC; TIAA Traditional RCP.
Take action
Get in touch.
Learn how TIAA can deliver lifetime income to your clients.

TIAA Traditional guarantees retirement income for life.
Tiaa traditional in retirement
And only with TIAA Traditional, long-term contributors can get bigger payouts.9
Lifetime income
Reliable income promotes security in retirement.

When TIAA Traditional contract owners reach retirement, they can choose to annuitize some or all of the money they’ve accumulated, turning it into a lifetime income stream: regular retirement checks.3,5
If someone decides not to annuitize right away when reaching retirement, they can leave their money in TIAA Traditional, cash out the built-up funds or annuitize some or all of the balance later.
Benefits of guaranteed lifetime income.

Cash flow
Covers spending needs more reliably than investments alone.

Volatility buffer
Provides protection and maintains spending power during market downturns.

Longevity risk protection
Guards against retirees outliving their savings.
Income you can't outlive
The odds favor long life, making annuitization a smart choice.
Most people underestimate how long they’ll live. A 65-year-old couple today will almost certainly see at least one of them live to age 83, and nearly half can expect one will reach 95.10
How long will a 65-year-old retiree live?

At age 65, probabilities a single annuitant or at least one member of a couple will live until age 83, 89 and 95.
Annuitization pays off
How annuitizing improves cash flow.

Annuitizing TIAA Traditional guarantees retirement checks for life—and tends to result in greater spending power than savings and investments alone can deliver using the 4% rule.11
- A retiree who annuitized in March, 2025 could have received 33% more money each month to spend by annuitizing one-third of their savings (and withdrawing the standard 4% from the remainder) than they would get by following the 4% withdrawal strategy alone.11
- In dollar terms, a TIAA Traditional annuitant with $1 million in savings could get $53,154 in their first year of retirement compared to $40,000—a cash-flow difference of nearly $1,100 per month.