Glossary

Annuity persistency is the rate at which annuity contracts remain in force over time without being surrendered, lapsed, annuitized into income, or otherwise terminated, typically measured as a percentage of contracts (or premium dollars) remaining in force at successive contract anniversaries.

A bailout provision is a contractual feature of certain deferred annuities — most commonly fixed indexed and fixed annuities — that allows the contract owner to surrender without a surrender charge or market value adjustment if a defined crediting parameter falls below a specified threshold.

A benefit base is the contractually defined value that a rider attached to a deferred annuity uses to calculate guaranteed benefits, operating separately from the contract's account value and following its own contractually specified rules for growth, step-ups, ratchets, and withdrawal effects.

A broker, in the annuity context, is a licensed intermediary who represents the prospective buyer rather than a specific insurance carrier and is generally authorized to sell annuity contracts from multiple carriers, with compensation typically received as a commission paid by the issuing carrier.

A buffer, in the registered index-linked annuity context, is a contractually defined amount of negative index return that the carrier absorbs before any loss is passed to the contract owner, typically expressed as a percentage of the index decline over a crediting period.