ApexAdvantage review

Yes, for the right buyer. It is a good annuity for someone who wants principal protection and tax-deferred growth tied to index performance, is comfortable leaving the money alone for the better part of a decade, and values buying from a financially strong, established carrier. It is less appealing for someone who needs meaningful liquidity, wants the highest possible caps in the market, or is buying primarily for income and expects the marketed rider bonus to be walk-away money — it is not.

The main reason to buy ApexAdvantage is straightforward accumulation with downside protection. Your money tracks one or more indices, you get a 0% floor so a bad index year does not cost you principal, and there is no annual contract fee, mortality and expense charge, or administration fee eating into the base policy. The secondary reason is optionality: if your plans change and you later want a guaranteed lifetime income stream, you can add the FutureNow rider — but you are not paying for it unless you choose to.

I think this annuity is best for a saver in their 50s or 60s who has money they will not need for ten years, wants index-linked growth without market risk to principal, and likes the idea of a strong mutual carrier standing behind the contract. It also fits someone who wants to keep the income option open without committing to it up front. It is a weaker fit for anyone who may need to tap principal above the 10% free amount, who wants the simplest or shortest-surrender product available, or who is certain they are buying strictly for income — that buyer should compare dedicated income FIAs before defaulting to this one plus its rider.

Without the rider, you are buying a plain-vanilla accumulation FIA: premium goes into a mix of index and fixed strategies, gains are credited annually on a point-to-point basis subject to caps or participation rates, and a 0% floor protects you in down years. That is the whole product for most buyers, and it is a reasonable one.

Add the FutureNow rider and you are buying something different — a lifetime income framework bolted onto the same chassis. The rider creates a separate benefit base (the Premium Accumulation Value) that is not the same as your spendable account value. That benefit base gets the 34% bonus and the roll-up, and it determines how large your guaranteed lifetime withdrawals can be. The important mental model: the account value is your money, and the benefit base is a formula for calculating income you must actually turn on to use.

The core of the base contract is annual point-to-point index crediting across six indexed strategies plus a fixed account. As of the January 1, 2026 rate snapshot (data thought current as of 2/20/2026), capped strategies show caps roughly in the 5.95% to 8.75% range, uncapped strategies run participation rates from about 40% up to 150%, and the fixed account credits 3.70%. Every indexed strategy has a 0% floor, and capped strategies carry a guaranteed minimum cap of 1.00% with a guaranteed minimum 10% participation on uncapped strategies — worst-case protections, not what you should expect in a normal year. These are snapshots; caps and participation rates reset and will change over the life of the contract.

The optional FutureNow rider (offered as FutureNow Rider VIII and FutureNow Rider With Booster VIII) is where the marketing energy goes, so it is worth walking through the arithmetic slowly. On a $100,000 premium, the rider stamps a 34% bonus onto the benefit base at issue, so the benefit base starts at $134,000 while your account value is still $100,000. That benefit base then grows at a 5.00% compound roll-up — but only for an initial three-year period (or until you start income, if sooner). Three years of 5% compounding takes the benefit base from $134,000 to roughly $155,000. After that, the roll-up stops; further benefit-base growth depends on account-value step-ups.

Here is the part a shopper needs to hear plainly. That $155,000 is not money you can withdraw or leave to heirs. The death benefit and any surrender are based on the account value (or the minimum guaranteed surrender value), not the benefit base. The 34% bonus and the roll-up only convert into real dollars as a lifetime income stream once you activate the GLWB and take withdrawals against that base. If you never turn on income, you paid the rider fee for a number on a statement.

And the fee is the other half of the trade. The FutureNow Rider currently charges 1.25% per year (1.35% for the version With Booster), with a 2.50% contractual maximum, and it is assessed on the benefit base but deducted from your account value. On that $100,000 example, year one costs about $1,675 (roughly $1,809 with the Booster), pulled straight out of your $100,000 account. As the benefit base climbs toward $155,000, the annual charge rises with it — around $1,900 a year at the current rate, and closer to $3,900 a year if the fee ever ratchets to its 2.50% max. In a flat market where your index strategies credit near 0%, that is roughly $5,000 or more drained from a static account over the first three years, because you are paying a percentage of the growing benefit base out of an account value that is not growing. The rider can absolutely be worth it for the right buyer — but it is a real, compounding cost, not a free bonus.

The version With Booster adds a care-related enhancement worth understanding. If the covered person cannot perform two of six activities of daily living — bathing, continence, dressing, eating, toileting, or transferring — the rider can double the GLWB income payments, provided the rider has been in force at least two years and income is already activated. For a buyer who elects the income rider anyway and worries about later care costs, that doubling feature is a meaningful reason to choose the Booster version over the plain rider, since the fee difference is small (1.35% vs. 1.25%).

Separately, the base contract includes waiver-of-surrender-charge provisions for confinement, terminal illness, and home health care or ADL impairment. These are not income riders and cost nothing extra — they simply waive surrender charges and the market value adjustment in those situations. They are a modest but real safety valve if life takes a hard turn during the surrender period.

This is a long-term contract, and the liquidity terms reflect that. After the first policy anniversary you can withdraw up to 10% of the accumulation value each year with no surrender charge or market value adjustment; that 10% is figured at the start of each policy year and does not carry over if unused. Anything above the free amount during the surrender period is subject to the withdrawal-charge schedule and an MVA.

The standard schedule runs 10 years, starting at 9% and stepping down 9%, 8%, 7%, 6%, 5%, 4%, 3%, 2%, 1% before reaching zero. California buyers get a gentler, separately filed schedule — 8.00%, 7.75%, 6.75%, 5.75%, 4.70%, 3.65%, 2.60%, 1.50%, 0.60%, then 0% — so the charges start lower and fade faster in that state. One genuinely useful provision: required minimum distributions are penalty-free from year one, so an older buyer taking RMDs is not boxed in by the surrender schedule for that portion. The contract is not sold in New York, and state variations apply in Florida, North and South Dakota; the Booster version may not be available everywhere.

Even with the free-withdrawal window, the RMD allowance, and the hardship waivers, this is not a product to treat as accessible cash. If there is a real chance you will need a large chunk of principal in the first several years, this surrender structure will bite.

The good news on fees is real: the base contract has no annual contract fee, no mortality and expense charge, no product fee, and no administration charge. If you buy ApexAdvantage as a straight accumulation FIA and skip the rider, your cost of ownership is essentially the opportunity cost of the caps and participation rates — no explicit annual drag. That is a cleaner fee profile than a lot of FIAs on the market.

The tradeoff arrives only if you elect FutureNow. The rider fee — 1.25% currently for the base version, 1.35% with the Booster, up to a 2.50% maximum — is charged on the benefit base but withdrawn from your account value, and it grows as the benefit base grows. As shown above, on $100,000 that starts near $1,675 a year and climbs. The rider is guaranteed at its current rate for the first ten policy years, which is helpful, but you should still price it against what it buys: guaranteed lifetime income you are reasonably sure you will use. The honest way to frame it is that the rider is not a bonus, it is a purchase — and like any purchase, it makes sense only if you will actually consume what it provides.

Who should not elect the rider: anyone who is not fairly confident they will turn on lifetime income, anyone who wants to maximize accumulation or preserve principal for heirs (the fee erodes account value while benefiting a base you cannot walk away with), and anyone planning to defer income for well beyond three years, since the roll-up stops after year three and long deferral does not keep compounding the base. For those buyers, the base contract without the rider — or a dedicated income FIA elsewhere — is likely the better path.

Legal Entity: Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.

Parent: Ameritas Mutual Holding Company

A.M. Best Rating: A