With today’s low interest rate environment, fixed annuities have become an increasingly popular addition to retirement portfolios. Fixed indexed annuities (FIAs), which offer guaranteed amounts of growth while protecting principal, are becoming increasingly popular investments for many clients. There are various insurers who provide them, offering traditional fixed annuities with guaranteed rates or multi-year guarantee annuities offering higher guaranteed rates; new products like strategic growth annuitys have even gained attention due to their simplicity and higher guaranteed rates.
Security Benefit Life offers Strategic Growth as a no-fee growth FIA that boasts nine index crediting options and a 10-year guaranteed rate guarantee, perfect for helping your clients build wealth over the long term. You can use Strategic Growth as part of their Traditional or Roth IRA account or Pension Plan or Simplified Employee Pension contribution plans.
The Strategic Growth annuity offers clients the flexibility of both lifetime income riders and optional death benefit riders, along with a flexible investment menu and multiple interest crediting methods such as flat index rate crediting strategies such as an 85% participation rate rate and fixed spread crediting strategies. Furthermore, an enhanced rate buy-up feature gives clients additional ways to boost participation rates or index-crediting strategies to help ensure higher returns even if markets decline.
This annuity is backed by the strength and stability of an insurance company with more than 127 years of history, while offering tax deferral. That means the contract’s accumulation value won’t be taxed until an annuitant withdraws funds – typically around age 59 1/2 or later.
An annuity’s guaranteed rate is calculated using a formula which takes into account its length, the index used, and current spot market price as factors. It can be altered at either end of its guarantee period or upon annuitant death.
Strategic Growth’s index-crediting strategy uses a spread to determine how much of an index gain will be credited back into an annuity’s account compared to other Fixed Index Annuities that use caps, participation rates or both as their index crediting method.
Security Benefit’s new Fixed Index Annuity Contract (FIA) is more generous than most competing products on the market. For instance, its Strategic Growth annuity allows a 50% participation rate on the S&P 500 index versus 40% to 45% at other growth FIAs.