Any time a withdrawal incurs a surrender charge, a Market Value Adjustment (MVA) will be made. For withdrawals above the annual penalty-free withdrawal amount for the purpose of a required minimum distribution, F&G will waive any surrender charges and market value adjustments.
Note that this surrender charge schedule is only valid for the F&G Accumulator Plus 10 annuity product for select states. For complete details about each state, you may contact your trusted financial advisor.
Contract/Administrative Charge
The F&G Accumulator Plus annuity levies no annual contract or administrative fees.
Riders
The F&G Accumulator Plus is a plain-vanilla annuity that does not offer any optional paid riders. In my opinion, this actually appeals to many people who don’t understand or do not want to deep-dive into the complex methodologies the riders often come up with. However, as with most annuities, the Accumulator Plus has free in-built home health care, nursing home, and terminal illness waivers.
Nursing Home Waiver:After the first contract year, an annuitant can withdraw up to 100% of the contract’s accumulated value if he is confined to a Qualified nursing home for at least 60 consecutive days. No withdrawal charge or MVA applies if the owner qualifies for this benefit. Diagnosis must occur after the contract is issued, and written proof with supporting documentation is required from a qualified physician.
Terminal Illness Waiver:After the first contract year, an annuitant can withdraw up to 100% of the contract’s accumulated value if he is diagnosed with a terminal illness with a prognosis of 12 months or less. No withdrawal charge or MVA applies if the owner qualifies for this benefit. Diagnosis must occur after the contract is issued, and written proof with supporting documentation is required from a qualified physician.
Home Health Care Waiver:After the first contract year, an annuitant can withdraw up to 100% of the contract’s accumulated value if he is unable to perform at least 2 of 6 activities of daily living (for at least 60 days and is expected to continue for at least 90 days after requesting withdrawal. No withdrawal charge or MVA applies if the owner qualifies for this benefit. Diagnosis must occur after the contract is issued, and written proof with supporting documentation is required from a qualified physician. While many annuities offer Nursing Home and Terminal Illness Waivers, the Home Health Care waiver is not something that many annuities offer.
What makes this product stand out?
The F&G Accumulator Plus is one of the best fixed-indexed annuities for accumulation. This annuity offers some of the features thatnot manyfixed-indexed annuities offer. The ones that I like the most are:
- Good Indexing OptionsThe F&G Accumulator Plus annuity offers very good Indexing crediting strategies on some of the good-performing indexes, such as the S&P 500 Index. It offers higher caps, par rates, etc, than most of the other similar fixed-indexedannuities.
- Penalty-free withdrawal on terminal illness or home or nursing careThis no-fee rider is automatically included for the annuity owner at issue and includes a Qualified Nursing Care, Terminal Illness, and Home Health Care waiver.
- Optional Rider to increase potential returnsThe Performance Rate rider helps to Increase cap, participation rate, etc, on available strategies for more accumulation options that can align with a wide variety of goals. But one must keep in mind that it comes with a fixed fee, varied according to the strategy selected.
- Low minimum purchase amountThe minimum purchase amount for this annuity is low at $10,000. Many of the popular annuities available in the market require a high minimum purchase amount of anywhere between $25,000 and $100,000. The low minimum purchase requirement enables even small investors to purchase annuity products.
What I don’t like
This product is generally good on all fronts for people looking for income growth; still, there are some features that I believe could add more value for the annuitant. Some of the features that I don’t like about the policy are:
- High Surrender Charge -The surrender charge of the F&G Accumulator Plus fixed indexed annuity is on the higher side when compared to similar annuities in the market. If you think that there is a possibility that you will need to surrender the policy, the F&G Accumulator Plus annuity may not be the perfect annuity for you.
- A limited number of riders to choose from -The F&G Accumulator Plus annuity doesn’t offer any enhanced living or death benefit riders, so, it may not be useful for people who are sure that they will need a guaranteed income stream from this annuity.
Company Details
You must always keep in mind that, unlike CDs, annuities are not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other federal insurance agency. An annuity's "guarantee" is only as strong as the insurance company that issues the annuity, so it is always important to assess the issuing company before buying an annuity.
Fidelity National Financial
F&G is a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial. Fidelity National Financial is one of the oldest title insurance companies and has been in the business for over 18 decades. It is a Fortune 500 company ranking #359.
It is rated as follows by the rating agencies:
