Yes I have experience with these; used to be licensed in variable annuities.
I suggest you wait on these. Annuities often are pretty complex, and generally have high annual, upfront, and other fees involved. They're good for if you want someone else to take the risk, like if you took a GM buyout, got 100K, and wanted to have this last from age 60 through the rest of your life.
If you're 30ish, what I'd suggest instead in the interest of keeping more of your investment versus paying it as a load, annual fee, marketing expense into the fund, etc. is to invest in an index fund or two which have very low expense ratios (% of your total assets you pay per year as a fee), often .4% or so versus maybe 1-2% for an annuity. If I were investing with a 30 year horizon, I'd probably go nearly 100% stocks, maybe a small % bond funds, say 10-20%. As you get nearer retirement, gradually increase the % investment in bonds as these generally are lower risk, and decrease % invested in stock. It may make sense at around age 60 to cash most of this out and, at that point, buy an annuity. You can buy one that pays out immediately, each year/month/whatever, for the rest of your life, or a certain # years only, or for the rest of your life + spouses life, depending on your preferences. Each of these options would have a slightly different payment, of course.
