Nassau Aims Annuity at Social Security Planning Market

Analysis January 18, 2024 at 02:08 PM
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Nassau Financial Group wants to give advisors a tool they can use to help clients fine-tune the start date for Social Security retirement benefits.

The Hartford, Connecticut-based company introduced the Nassau Income Accelerator, an annuity with Social Security-compatible lifetime income options.

Under current rules, clients may be able to increase their annual Social Security benefits by as much as 24% if they wait until age 70 to claim benefits, rather than starting at age 62, the company says.

Buyers of the new Nassau annuity can arrange for it to pay higher benefits early on, for up to eight years, to reduce the need to begin collecting Social Security before age 70.

What it means: Clients are hungry for information about Social Security and ideas about how to plan for it. Life and annuity issuers have noticed.

The Nassau product: Nassau is writing its new annuity through its Nassau Life and Annuity Company subsidiary.

The product is a single-premium, non-variable indexed annuity.

Nassau has $23 billion in assets under management.

Other strategy moves: Stock prices, interest rates and other economic drivers have bobbled in all directions in recent months.

Strategists have responded with products aimed at clients who are looking at all different levels of gloom and hope.

American Life & Security Corp., a subsidiary of Lincoln, Nebraska-based Midwest Holding, introduced Fusion, a multi-year guaranteed index annuity that can meet the needs of clients who still want to lock in guaranteed returns.

The five-year contract offers a five-year compounding interest rate along with the opportunity for a bonus if the S&P 500 Index reaches a defined performance threshold at the end of the five-year term.

The company has also addressed another client concern that may go unmentioned: death.

A guaranteed death benefit included in the contract will pay the full account value without surrender charges or market-value adjustments if the contract owner dies before the contract term ends.

The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co., a Horsham, Pennsylvania-based insurer, added the Accumulation Variable Universal Life policy.

Clients who think investment markets will perform well can increase policy value by tying accumulation to the performance of investment options managed by Vanguard or indexed accounts tied to the performance of the S&P 500 Index.

The indexed accounts can provide protection against loss of value when the S&P 500 performs poorly.

Equitable, the New York-based giant, appealed to clients who are optimistic about the investment market, and very optimistic, by adding two investment options to its Investment Edge investment-only variable annuity.

One option, the Dual Step-Up segment, can provide a positive return for a client in a flat or down market, "by guaranteeing a positive return equal to the performance cap rate if the selected index return is greater than or equal to the chosen buffer at the end of the investment period," according to Equitable.

The other option, a growth multiplier, can increase returns for clients who give up partial protection against losses if the S&P 500 performs well.

Equitable is also adding 52 investment options that can offer Investment Edge contract owners a buffer against some losses when the investment options perform poorly.

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