There are several retirement products in the market today, one of them is an Annuity. Indexed annuities are a type of fixed annuity which are regulated and distributed in the same manner as fixed annuities . Indexed annuities are a conservative safe money place for retirement dollars. Indexed annuities usually provide a purchaser with various options for interest crediting. A buyer does have an option to elect a declared interest rate, which generally allows an allocation of anywhere from 0-100% of the account value, and functions the same as a traditional fixed annuity. However, the annuity is designed for higher potential interest rates, and provides other allocation options which consider the performance of an outside stock index (such as the Standard and Poor's 500, a.k.a. S&P 500) to determine the rate of interest. These options pay interest at a rate determined by a formula which considers any increase in the outside index, often subject to a “participation rate”, and/or “cap, and/or "spread”.