Canvas Annuity At a Glance: Rates, Products and Reviews

Products Offered by Canvas Annuity

Canvas currently sells two products, both of which are single premium deferred annuities. The two products are very similar, with the only real difference being in the goal they aim to help customers achieve.

The Future Fund annuity aims to provide maximum earning potential and partially attempts this goal by offering desirable rates.

The product is available for three, five or seven years, with each term advertising a rate of over 6% as of June 2024.

The contract includes terminal illness and nursing home exceptions, as well as the option for the accumulation value of the annuity to be paid to your beneficiary if you die during the product’s term.

Canvas also sells the Flex Fund, which is geared towards offering increased access to your money.

It’s a similar product to the Future Fund, with the contracts looking mostly similar between the two options. But the Flex Fund currently offers lower rates and advertises the ability to get back your initial premium at any time.

About Canvas Annuity

Canvas Annuity is a somewhat unusual annuity provider in terms of how it positions itself. Annuities are complex financial products, and as a result, buying one typically requires a drawn-out process.

The company advertises a quick turnaround and an entirely online experience, claiming an application and funding process that can be completed in 10 minutes.

This is a significant departure from the operations of most of the industry’s largest and most successful annuity companies.

Puritan Life Insurance owns Canvas Annuity, which also issues the annuities sold through Canvas’s website. Canvas is a new addition to the annuity market, but Puritan Life was founded over 75 years ago.

The company holds a B++ rating from AM Best, which is notably lower than the larger and most reputable companies in the industry. Canvas also claims $180 million in managed assets, which is significantly lower than the level of business the legacy providers do.

Credit Rating

Credit ratings for annuity providers can help determine a company’s financial strength and stability — an indication that it will be around to guarantee payments to you in the future. Different rating companies use different scales.

Puritan Life’s Credit Ratings

Rating Company	Credit Rating
AM Best	B++
Fitch	Not Rated
S&P	Not Rated

What Customers Are Saying About Canvas Annuity

Given the company’s size and relative youth, there is not a lot of easily attainable customer information on Canvas Annuity.

The company has not appeared in recent editions of the J.D. Power Overall Customer Satisfaction Index for annuity companies, which is unsurprising since that study focuses on the largest providers.

Canvas Annuity’s parent company, Puritan Life, which issues the annuities Canvas advertises, holds a poor NAIC Complaint Index Score. This means that, given its market presence, there have been more customer complaints against the company for annuities than expected.

The NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) tracks consumer complaints each state’s insurance commission receives each year. These are used to compile a company’s NAIC Complaint IndexNAIC Complaint IndexDetermined by dividing the company’s share of complaints in the U.S. market by the company’s share of premiums in the U.S. market. The National Complaint Index is always 1.00, so a score of 2.00, for example, is twice as high as expected in the market..

NAIC Complaint Index for Canvas Annuity 

All Policy Types	0.55
Individual Annuities Only	2.44

Canvas Annuity Pros & Cons

The obvious pro to working with Canvas Annuity is its attractive rates on its products. Currently, available rates outpace many of the larger providers in the industry.

The company also boasts of its online-focused, direct-to-consumer approach that makes the sales process easier and more efficient.

But strong rates aren’t everything, and there are several noteworthy cons to opting for a Canvas annuity.

Puritan Life’s B++ rating from AM Best may concern potential customers. One agent Annuity.org spoke to said they would not even work with companies rated that low in annuity sales.

Canvas Annuity is also not as widely available as some of its larger competitors. According to the NAIC, access is currently limited to 38 states.

Its youth and somewhat small number of managed assets can also deter customers who are focused on the security that comes from a larger or more well-known provider.

Provider Rating Methodology

Annuity.org created a fact-based methodology to analyze the strength, security and reach of different annuity providers. We assessed companies based on their availability, the amount of direct premiums sold, their AM Best Financial Strength Rating and their NAIC Complaint Index score.

Providers received a rating on a five-star scale for each of these categories, with the complaint index and financial strength ratings weighed as the heaviest variables. Then, using a weighted average, each company was assigned an overall star rating.

Annuity.org’s Top-Ranked Providers

Provider	Annuity.org Star Rating
Mass Mutual
New York Life
Pacific Life
Midland National
North American
Western Southern

Our Rating Panel

The Annuity.org editorial team spoke with several different annuity experts to learn more about what is important to customers when searching for a provider and what factors make a company reliable. While Annuity.org designed the methodology, these experts provided feedback during the process and consulted on what factors we should leverage to best help prospective buyers compare providers.