Guaranty Income Life At a Glance: Rates, Products and Reviews

Today’s Best Guaranty Income Life Annuity Rates

Term	Product	AM Best Rating	Rate
8 Years	Guaranty Rate Lock	A-	4.10 %
9 Years	Guaranty Rate Lock	A-	4.10 %
10 Years	Guaranty Rate Lock	A-	4.10 %

Compare Guaranty Income Life Annuity Rates

Additional Products Offered by Guaranty Income Life

Guaranty Income Life has a narrow focus when it comes to its annuities, offering just two base products with different versions of each available based on factors like term length.

Both products are deferred options. Variable annuities and single premium immediate annuities are not available through GILICO.

WealthChoice Fixed Index Annuity 

The first annuity available through GILICO is the WealthChoice, a fixed index product. This annuity offers the typical perks of an FIA, allowing you to accumulate value in a tax-deferred way. 

It is available in terms of five, seven or 10 years and provides several different allocation strategies for customers to pick from. This would be a significant advantage compared to other fixed index annuity providers, where most surrender periods are only 10 years.

WealthChoice Allocation Options

• Point-to-Point Cap Indexed Account with the S&P 500 Price Return Index
• Point-to-Point Participation Indexed Account with the S&P 500 Price Return Index
• Monthly Sum Cap Indexed Account with the S&P 500 Price Return Index
• Fixed Account

Several optional riders can be added to your WealthChoice contract, with different choices available for different terms.

A Guaranteed Living Benefit Rider — which is the option to provide lifetime income — is available on terms of seven or 10 years.

Additionally, a premium bonus rider that adds a 5% bonus to your contract is offered for 10-year contracts.

On all terms, customers can withdraw up to 10% of the value of the contract without facing a penalty. Terminal illness and nursing home waivers are included, along with a death benefit.

Guaranty Rate Lock

The other annuity option available through GILICO is the Guaranty Rate Lock, which is a single premium deferred annuity.

It’s available in terms of three to 10 years for those who are 90 or younger and in terms of three to five years for those up to age 100.

Customers can opt to annuitize at any time, choosing from several payout options. Up to 5% of the contract can be withdrawn without facing a penalty and — similar to WealthChoice — terminal illness and nursing home riders are part of the contract.

I appreciate a company that focuses on the products they understand and do correctly. Guaranty Income Life offers only two products, but boasts excellent consumer satisfaction and good financial stability based on their ratings. 

Stephen Kates, CFP®Principal Financial Analyst for Annuity.org

Stephen Kates, CFP® is a personal finance expert specializing in financial planning and education. He serves as the Principal Financial Analyst for Annuity.org, where he delves into industry trends to support consumers and financial advisors on wealth management, annuities, retirement planning, and investing.

About Guaranty Income Life

Guaranty Income Life is one of the older providers active in the annuity space, originally opening its doors in 1926. 

The company is based in Louisiana and recently saw its AM Best Financial Strength Rating upgraded to A- in 2022.

GILICO was acquired by and became a subsidiary of Kuvare U.S. Holdings in 2016. Kuvare, which is a life and annuity business, saw its total assets eclipse $33 billion in 2022.

Credit Ratings

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.

Guaranty Income Life Credit Ratings

Rating Company	Credit Rating
AM Best	A-
Fitch	Not Rated
S&P	Not Rated

What Customers Are Saying About Guaranty Income Life

With more than $1.2 billion in annual direct premiums sold, Guaranty Income Life has a solid base of annuity customers.

However, there is not a lot of publicly available information on how satisfied customers are. GILICO does not appear in the 2022 or 2023 editions of the J.D. Power Overall Customer Satisfaction Index for annuities, which doesn’t mean they received a poor score but that they weren’t considered.

The company holds 3.5 stars with 13 Google reviews, but this can be a tricky way to judge a company’s effectiveness.

The biggest positive is the company’s NAIC Complaint Index score of 0.6. This means that Guaranty Income Life has fewer customer complaints than expected given its share of the marketplace.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) tracks the consumer complaints that 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 Guaranty Income Life

All Policy Types	0.04
Individual Annuities Only	0.6

Guaranty Income Life Pros & Cons

There are pros and cons to purchasing an annuity from Guaranty Income Life. It’s important to keep in mind that a specific company or product doesn’t always make sense for everyone.

Your choice will likely depend on your circumstances.

Pros

• One perk of Guaranty Income Life is that, while its overall offerings are limited, it includes a solid option for those interested in a fixed index annuity.
• The inclusion of 10% free withdrawals, a death benefit and riders to account for terminal illness or nursing home confinement, along with access to several allocation strategies, make for a strong product.
• Additionally, GILICO’s low NAIC Complaint Index score is appealing, and it is a company of sound financial strength.

Cons

• The major con is the company’s lack of diverse offerings. It only offers two base products and does not represent common types of annuities like variable or immediate annuities. But this may not be a con if your heart is set on a fixed index annuity or if an existing product matches what you are looking for.
• However, it’s worth considering for those shopping around for different types of products or who are unsure what type of annuity makes the most sense for them.

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.