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Life Health > Annuities > Fixed Annuities

Principal Protection Is Out There: Annuity Moves

By Allison Bell

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What You Need to Know

  • National Western Life created a contract for a new marketing alliance.
  • Global Atlantic starts out limiting contract value losses to 10%.
  • OneAmerica is offering a holistic account view tool.

Some life insurers are still introducing annuities that protect the value of premium contributions, despite worries about stock market, bond market and interest rate volatility.

National Western Life Insurance Company and North American Company for Life and Health Insurance — a Sammons Financial subsidiary — are two companies that have added non-variable indexed annuities in recent weeks.

What It Means

Some life insurers continue to brave volatility to protect customers against it.

Principal Protection

Austin, Texas-based National Western Life introduced a non-variable indexed annuity designed for its own organization for independent marketing organizations, The Sterling Group.

The IMOs in the group are Advisors Excel, CreativeOne, Financial Independence Group, Gradient Insurance Brokerage, Impact Partnership and M&O Marketing.

National Western Life says it will offer the NWL New Frontiers contract solely through The Sterling Group, via the FireLight electronic application system.

The product links the crediting rate to the performance of investment index strategies with one-year, two-year, and six-year durations.

The contract offers exclusive access to an index from J.P. Morgan, and the J.P. Morgan Factor Focus index.

North American Company for Life and Health, which is based in West Des Moines, Iowa, rolled out a new edition of an existing non-variable indexed annuity.

The new NAC BenefitSolutions 10 offers a contract and rider combination that can guarantee protection for 125% of the premiums a customer has paid.

The rider has a charge equal to 1.2% of the “Benefit Base” amount.

Registered Index-Linked Annuities

Some big life insurers are unveiling registered index-linked variable annuities, or products that provide a limited buffer against decreases in the value of the premiums fed into a contract.

Global Atlantic Financial Group, a New York-based insurer, has launched the ForeStructured Growth RILA contract through a subsidiary.

The product is the first RILA contract to be issued by a Global Atlantic subsidiary.

The product offers a menu of 24 index-linked crediting strategies and a one-year fixed strategy.

Global Atlantic has added the Fidelity US Corporate Strength Index, the Franklin US Equity Index and the UBS Climate Aware Equity Index along with the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq-100 Index.

One feature can limit early losses to 10% of the “Strategy Contract Value” amount. Other features can buffer the contract against losses of 10% or 20% of protected value.

Brighthouse Financial, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based insurer, has rolled out the Brighthouse Shield Level Pay Plus Annuity and the Brighthouse Shield Level Pay Plus Advisory Annuity contracts.

The products offer guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit riders that can provide a stream of guaranteed lifetime income.

The products have no base contract fees. The annual charge is 1.5%.

Tech

Annuity issuers also continue to try to set themselves apart with technology.

OneAmerica — an Indianapolis-based insurer — is helping give retirement plan advisors a chance to get a holistic view of participants’ assets by adding an asset management portal system from ProNvest of Chattanooga, Tennessee. About 30% of plan participants who have a chance to put information about their outside assets in the portal do so, according to OneAmerica.

Eagle Life Insurance Company — a West Des Moines, Iowa-based unit of American Equity Investment Life — says it’s offering data about some of its non-variable indexed annuities through a digital planning system operated by West Hollywood, California-based InvestCloud.

Ameritas — a Lincoln, Nebraska-based insurer — has agreed to offer plan sponsors access to the GoalWise financial education system from LDI-MAP of Scottsdale, Arizona.

(Image: Sergey Nivens/Adobe Stock)

Allison Bell

Think_Allison

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