Defined terms for the annuity market and lifetime income landscape.
A variable annuity is an insurance contract under which the contract owner allocates premium to subaccounts holding investments whose values fluctuate with market performance, with optional living-benefit and death-benefit riders providing contractual guarantees in exchange for explicit charges.
A volatility-controlled index is a constructed index, typically built by a carrier in partnership with an index provider, that targets a specified level of volatility by dynamically reallocating between an equity component and a cash or fixed-income component as measured volatility rises and falls.
A withdrawal fee is a charge imposed by an insurance carrier on amounts withdrawn from an annuity contract during the surrender period or in excess of the free-withdrawal provision, with the most common form being the surrender charge, and some contracts also imposing a separate transactional fee.
