Sales & Marketing | 10.21.26
The Wealth Management Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight
by: Matt DiGangi
This article is sponsored by MassMutual Strategic Distributors.
1. The Overlooked Retirement-income Opportunity
For financial professionals looking to deepen retirement and wealth management relationships, the opportunity is clear, but the starting point is not always obvious. Clients need continued growth to support a retirement that may last decades, yet many also want greater confidence about the income their assets can produce. Variable annuities can help connect those needs by combining market participation with optional lifetime income guarantees.
For established bank and credit-union wealth management programs, the variable annuity offers something rare — a way to participate in market growth while delivering the guarantees clients increasingly demand. The story behind that opportunity rests on three ideas worth understanding.
The need has only grown sharper as retirements have lengthened. A client retiring today may need their assets to last 30 years or more — a horizon long enough that the timing of market returns, not just the average return over the period, can permanently shape the income those assets produce. Most portfolios are built for accumulation, optimizing for total return and long-term growth. They are not always built to answer the very different question clients eventually face: how much dependable income can this last, and for how long? Resolving that tension — between the growth clients need and the confidence they want — is where the real opportunity lies.
2. Why Market Participation Still Matters
The foundation of the variable annuity case is a fact that gets lost in the noise of daily headlines: over the long run, markets rise far more often than they fall. The S&P 500 has historically been positive 76% of the time. And the cost of stepping away is steep: over a 20-year timeframe, missing only the 10 best days would reduce your return by 63%.¹
That statistic matters because it reframes the conversation with clients. Volatility is not the same as loss. Clients who panic at a midyear dip and move to cash often miss the recovery that closes out the year. A variable annuity, by giving money the opportunity to grow with the market, is built for exactly this reality — it helps clients stay invested for the long term and keep pace with rising costs over time, rather than trading out of the very growth they need.
For financial professionals guiding clients through retirement, this is the opening. You are not asking clients to bet against history. You are asking them to align with it — and to do so inside a structure designed to soften the downs along the way.
3. Why Growth and Guarantees Can Work Together
Unlike products that apply an explicit cap to credited returns, a variable annuity offers uncapped growth potential4 through its available underlying investment options. But the more compelling story is what happens when you pair that growth with a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit such as MassMutual RetirePay℠, available with the MassMutual EnvisionSM Variable Annuity.
Here is where the “double benefit” comes in. RetirePay lets a client benefit from potential market growth and rising withdrawal rates until they take income. The two work in tandem:
- Lock in market gains. Quarterly or annual step-ups lock in potential market growth.²
- AND rising withdrawal rates. The withdrawal rate can increase each year until the client takes income³.
The engine behind this is the benefit base. It can grow due to positive market performance, but it will not go down due to negative market performance. The initial benefit base equals the initial purchase payment. If the contract value increases, the benefit base has the potential to step up to a higher amount automatically on each contract anniversary. Once a new, higher benefit base is set, it remains there — it may climb higher with additional step-ups, but it will not retreat simply because the market does, assuming no excess withdrawals have been taken.
For clients, this is the answer to the question that haunts every retirement plan: “What if the market falls right when I need the money?” For the professional, it is a differentiator. You can offer participation in the market’s upside without forcing clients to shoulder its downside alone — and unlike most guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit options, taking a withdrawal does not automatically lock in the withdrawal rate, allowing for far more flexibility when taking income.
That combination — uncapped growth, step-ups that lock in gains, a protected benefit base, and flexible income — is the heart of the wealth management opportunity. It is a story of participation and protection in a single contract.
4. Why the Carrier Matters
A guarantee is only as strong as the company behind it. This is the part of the conversation that too often gets treated as an afterthought, and for established wealth management practices it is precisely where credibility is won or lost.
Clients are trusting a company to pay income for what could be decades. The question they should ask — and that you should be able to answer — is whether that company has weathered market cycles before and emerged intact. A carrier with a long record of operating for the benefit of its customers, one that has been tested through market highs and lows and has stayed focused on long-term value, is the foundation that makes every other feature believable.
Strength and stability are not a marketing flourish; they are the precondition for the entire promise. Step-ups, rising withdrawal rates, a protected benefit base — none of it inspires confidence if the guarantor is shaky. Before you talk features, get comfortable with the institution. Look for a carrier with the longevity and the independent financial-strength ratings to stand behind a lifetime guarantee. The strongest product story in the world collapses if the company behind it cannot deliver.
That is why the right variable annuity is not just a product — it is a partnership built to last the length of a retirement.
5. Three Conversations Financial Professionals Can Start Now
The narrative above only works if it reaches the client. For financial professionals deepening retirement and wealth management relationships, the real opportunity is in using these ideas to shape the conversations you are already having — and the ones you have not started yet.
How much growth does the client still need? Most clients have a growth appetite they have not fully articulated. The historical record — markets positive 76% of the time, and missing just the 10 best days over 20 years would reduce returns by 63% — is a way to draw it out. Ask clients how they would have felt during one of those midyear dips, and what they did next. Many clients keep more in conservative allocations than they need to simply because no one has connected the dots to long-term growth. The conversation is not about chasing returns; it is about making sure the growth engine of a long-term plan is fully engaged.
How would a market decline affect the client’s income plan? This is the question that keeps many clients in overly conservative positions long after they need to be. The fear is rational — a market decline early in retirement can permanently reduce the income a portfolio is able to sustain, because those early losses have less time to recover. But the planning question is not simply whether a client can tolerate a decline on paper; it is whether their income plan is structured to withstand one. When clients understand that a guarantee can stand between a market downturn and the income they depend on — that a protected benefit base can grow when markets rise but will not retreat when they fall — the conversation shifts from “what if the market falls?” to “what do you gain by staying invested?” It lets them see growth and protection not as a trade-off, but as a partnership.
Who stands behind the guarantee? A client trusting a company to pay income for decades deserves to know that company has weathered market cycles before and emerged intact. Point to a carrier with longevity and independent financial-strength ratings at the highest tiers — MassMutual, founded 175 years ago, is built for exactly that conversation. The strength and stability are what make every other feature believable.
The Opportunity, in Brief
The case for variable annuities in a wealth management practice comes down to three well-supported ideas: markets have historically rewarded the patient, rising more often than they fall; a variable annuity paired with a guaranteed lifetime income benefit offers a double benefit of uncapped growth potential and guaranteed income protections; and the carrier behind the guarantee must have the strength and stability to honor it over a lifetime.
The opportunity is not hiding because it is small — it is hiding because it is familiar. The professionals who learn to tell this story well are the ones clients turn to when the market next tests their resolve, because they can translate a market story into a client’s plan. Learn more about how variable annuities can help address the retirement income needs of the clients you serve.
Matt DiGangi is the head of annuity distribution for MassMutual Strategic Distributors.
End Notes
For registered representative use only.
This product and/or certain features and investment options may not be available in all states or firms.
1 January 1, 2006–December 31, 2025. Franklin Templeton, The Rewards of Long-Term Investing.
2 With both the Highest Anniversary Value Step-Up and the Highest Quarterly Value Step-Up options, gains are locked in once, at the end of the Contract Year. The Highest Anniversary Value Step-Up locks in growth annually using the Contract Value from the end of the contract year. The Highest Quarterly Value Step-Up looks at the end of each Contract Quarter and locks in growth at the end of the Contract Year using the highest quarterly value.
3 Postponing withdrawals may positively impact the Annual Lifetime Benefit Amount (e.g., because of higher Withdrawal Rates when you are older). However, if you postpone taking withdrawals, you may limit the value of this feature because your remaining life expectancy shortens as you age.
4 When you elect RetirePay, your investment allocations are restricted so you may not experience the full risk or return potential of the market. Some types of annuities limit the potential you can earn. They allow some growth, but only up to a limit, often known as a “cap rate”. A Variable Annuity is different in that there is no limit to your earnings in accordance with the performance of the underlying investments— they are “uncapped”.
MassMutual Envision (Contract Form FPVDA21 and ICC21-FPVDA in certain states, including North Carolina) is a flexible premium deferred variable annuity contract issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, MA 01111-0001.
NOT FDIC/NCUA INSURED • NO BANK/CREDIT UNION GUARANTEE • MAY LOSE VALUE • NOT INSURED BY ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY • NOT A BANK/CREDIT UNION DEPOSIT OR OTHER OBLIGATION • MAY GO DOWN IN VALUE
Variable annuities are offered through registered representatives of MML Investors Services, LLC, Springfield, MA 01111-0001, or a broker-dealer that has a selling agreement with MML Strategic Distributors, LLC, Springfield, MA 01111-0001.
Principal Underwriters: MML Investors Services, LLC (MMLIS), Member SIPC® and MML Strategic Distributors, LLC (MSD), are both Members FINRA and subsidiaries of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, MA.
Withdrawals in excess of your Annual Lifetime Benefit Amount will reduce and may eliminate the value of the guarantees provided by RetirePay. An excess withdrawal will result in a reduction to the Benefit Base and the Annual Lifetime Benefit Amount and may reduce the Benefit Base by more than the dollar amount of the excess withdrawal.
Any guarantees referenced herein are based on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company.
Financial strength ratings do not apply to the separate account or the variable investment choices offered under the variable annuity, nor do they imply any promise of investment performance. Ratings are as of 10/1/2026 and apply to Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and its subsidiaries, C.M. Life Insurance Company and MML Bay State Life Insurance Company. Ratings are subject to change.
This article is for educational purposes and is not intended as tax, legal, or investment advice.
© 2026 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual®), Springfield, MA 01111-0001.