Equitable Adds a RILA-Income Combo: Annuity Moves

What You Need to Know

The Equitable product purchasers can protect against up to 10% or 15% of market losses during the asset building period.
Pacific Life has added a MYGA contract with no withdrawal charges.
American Equity has a new non-variable indexed annuity with a 10-year surrender charge period.
DPL is setting up a MYGA supermarket for fee-based advisors.

Equitable has come out with a new type of registered index-linked annuity (RILA) contract: a product that acts like an ordinary RILA product while the holder is building up assets, and that can then act like a fixed income annuity when the holder needs retirement income.

The New York-based insurer has added the Structured Capital Strategies Income contract to its line of Structured Capital Strategies annuities.

Retirement savers can use the contract to protect themselves against losses of up to 10% or 15% when building up assets.

When they began taking out income, they can lock in a guaranteed level of income.

Holders can also choose an income payment option that leads to the contract paying a higher level of benefits early on.

Both income options offer the holder a chance to increase income by 5% of contributions per year each year before they start receive income, as long as they have not yet taken any withdrawals.

The extra growth will be credited for up to 20 years or the contract maturity date, whichever is earlier, Equitable says.

The new product is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a variable product, meaning that it can expose the holder to the risk of loss of account value.

Some state insurance regulators are calling RILA contracts index-linked variable annuities.

Pacific Life

Pacific Life has introduced a multi-year guaranteed annuity, or MYGA contract, aimed at fee-only advisors.

The Newport Beach, California-based insurer’s new Pacific Harbor MYGA contract has no commissions or withdrawal charges.

American Equity

American Equity Investment Life Insurance Co. has started selling the FlexShield 10 annuity.

The product is a non-variable indexed annuity with a 10-year surrender charge period.

The contract can pay holders higher returns than comparable products in exchange for the holder accepting the 10-year surrender charge period and the possibility of facing negative performance adjustments, American Equity says.

The West Des Moines, Iowa-based company says the contract also offers strategies that let holders choose how much accumulated value they want to protect. A holder can adjust the level of value protection every year.

DPL

DPL Financial Partners has set up a commission-free exchange for multi-year guaranteed annuity contracts.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based company’s new MYGA market is aimed at fee-only advisors who want to help clients use MYGA contracts.

The market will start with contracts from four insurers. The products offer rate guarantee terms ranging from three years to 10 years and rates ranging from 2.1% to 3.25%.

David Lau, DPL’s CEO, notes that some clients and advisors see MYGA contracts as good alternatives to low-yielding bank certificates of deposit.

DPL insurance and annuity markets now serve about 1,300 member firms.