NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - I own variable annuities that I bought from a reputable company in 1998 and 2000. They doubled in value, but then began to lose money. Now they're worth only half what I invested. Do I have any way to recoup these losses? I'm retired and had planned to use these gains for my Golden Years.

-- Wanda Simpson, Ocala, Florida

I've been pretty critical of variable annuities over the years because of the high fees they charge. But I want to be clear that the kinds of losses you're talking about here are market-related losses.

When you buy a variable annuity, you typically get to invest your money in a variety of "subaccounts," which are essentially mutual fund portfolios. Like mutual funds, they come in several flavors: growth, value, large-cap, small-cap, tech, etc. And during the go-go '90s, many people who bought variable annuities did what many other investors did: they put lots of their money in aggressive stock accounts.

That strategy worked well until about March 2000 when the market hit the fan, so to speak.

The fact that many annuities charge much higher annual expenses than mutual funds -- often 2 percent or more of assets vs. 1.5 percent or so in funds -- may exacerbate short-term losses a bit and definitely will dampen an annuity's long-term growth potential. But it's the collapse of the market that's wreaked havoc with your annuities, although I suspect the hit would have been lighter had you assembled a truly diversified portfolio of subaccounts that included a variety of equity investing styles as well as some bonds.

So what are your options? Well, it's possible that one or both of your annuities contains a provision that limits your damage or even bails you out of your difficulty.

Some variable annuities contain an option called a Guaranteed Minimum Account Value, or GMAV. If you choose this option -- which increases your annual expenses -- the annuity issuer agrees to increase the value of your account by some specified minimum amount even if the subaccounts tank.

So, for example, the GMAV feature may say that at the end of a certain number of years, you get the value of your account or some minimum -- say, 10 percent more than you invested -- whichever is greater. (But there may be conditions that must be met before the annuity issuer will give you the specified minimum).

Another feature many annuities offer these days is the Guaranteed Minimum Income Benefit, or GMIB. Like the GMAV, the GMIB assures that, regardless of how your subaccounts perform, you will get some minimum account value in the future, say, the value of your original investment compounded at a 6 percent annual rate.

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To get this value, however, you must "annuitize" -- that is, convert your account value to a stream of payments, usually for life. Once you annuitize, you are assured of lifetime payments, but you won't be able to dip into your account for emergencies and such, which could be a problem unless you have other assets. Also, the word "minimum" in "guaranteed minimum income benefit" isn't there for nothing. The company really only does guarantee a minimum payment, which usually isn't very high.

Normally, I'm not crazy about these types of features. I believe they add more cost than actual value. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean these types of benefits can't pay off sometimes. And with the market way down, now could be one of those times.

In any case, you may want to check your contract or contact the person who sold you the annuity to see if either of these options -- or any others -- might provide an out for you.

If your annuity does have a GMIB feature, make sure the income you'll get is competitive with what's available elsewhere. You can check rates from several insurers by going to WebAnnuities.com. Also, ask if it's possible to take advantage of the GMIB without annuitizing your entire account value (which I doubt). If the insurer does allow this, you could hold onto some of your account balance to dip into for emergencies.

Oh, there is one other annuity option I didn't mention. That's the Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefit, or GMDB. (Do you get the feeling the annuity people love these acronyms?). Like the GMAV and GMIB, the GMDB assures a certain minimum account value in the future regardless of how your subaccounts perform.

In some cases that minimum is the value of your original investment minus any withdrawals you've made. In other cases, the value is your original investment compounded at a certain rate of return, say, 6 percent. But here's the catch: you've got to die to trigger the GMDB feature. So I'm assuming this isn't a realistic option for you.

If your contract doesn't provide for any of the features mentioned above, re-think the way your money is invested within the annuity. Ideally, you want a broadly diversified portfolio that includes stock funds of several investment styles as well as some bond funds. Click here for some advice on how to create such a portfolio.

And check your annuity's fees. Once the market recovers, you want to get the best returns possible. High fees will erode your returns and slow the building of your wealth. To get a good sense of what constitutes 'decent fees,' go to the T.D. Waterhouse Annuity Center.

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If you decide to move your money to another annuity, check to see whether you will be hit with any surrender charges. These are penalties for early withdrawal that can range as high as 9 percent. Surrender charges usually decline year by year and disappear after six to eight years. So before switching, you might wait until these charges fade away, or at least have fallen to a tolerable level.

Normally, I would also tell you to do what's known as a "1035 tax-free exchange" from one annuity to another so that you wouldn't be hit with taxes and, if you're under age 59-1/2, a 10 percent penalty on your gains. But since you're sitting on a 50 percent loss, avoiding taxes is the one thing you don't need to think about, at least for now.

Walter Updegrave is the author of "Investing for the Financially Challenged" and can be seen regularly Monday mornings at 8:40 am on CNNfn.