Velocity review

Yes, for the right buyer. This is a good annuity for someone who wants protected lifetime income, values having a rider built in rather than paying for one separately, and can plan several years ahead before activating withdrawals. It is less appealing for someone who mainly wants accumulation, needs liquidity above the free amount, or wants a simple flat guaranteed roll-up they can project on a calculator.

The main reason to buy Velocity is to build future lifetime income on dollars you do not need right away. The income rider is included automatically at no explicit cost, the Income Base starts with a 30% head start, and it can keep growing for up to 18 years through the 175% earnings credit. For a buyer who wants principal protection along the way and a guaranteed paycheck later, that is a coherent package — and not having to pay a separate rider fee is a genuine advantage over many income FIAs that charge 1% or more for the equivalent feature.

I think Velocity is best for someone in the pre-retirement or early-retirement window, roughly age 55 to 70, who wants to convert long-term savings into future lifetime income and expects to defer withdrawals for several years. It fits both qualified and non-qualified money, and the no-cost rider makes it attractive for buyers who dislike paying explicit annual rider charges. It is less attractive for someone who wants short-term access to principal, someone shopping primarily for growth, or someone who wants the income guarantee locked to a flat percentage regardless of how the index performs.

You are not really buying stock market upside here. You are buying a future income stream wrapped around a principal-protected annuity. The heart of the contract is the Velocity Income Rider IX, a Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit. Your premium creates two separate numbers: an Accumulation Value (the real cash value you could surrender) and an Income Base (a benefit-only number used solely to calculate your lifetime income). The Income Base starts 30% higher than your premium and grows over time, but you cannot withdraw it as a lump sum — it exists only to size your guaranteed paycheck. When you turn income on, your age determines a withdrawal percentage that is applied to that Income Base for life.

The Velocity Income Rider IX is included automatically with no additional charge. At issue, your single premium gets a 30% Income Base Bonus — so $100,000 of premium creates a $130,000 starting Income Base. (If you also elect the Family Endowment Rider death benefit, that initial bonus drops to 15%.) From there, the Income Base grows through what Athene calls the Earnings-Indexed Income Option: every two-year term, 175% of the interest the contract actually earned is credited to the Income Base, and this can continue for up to 18 years or until you begin lifetime withdrawals.

The key thing to understand is that this is not a flat guaranteed roll-up. If the index credits nothing in a given term, the Income Base does not grow that term from this feature. That is different from many competing income FIAs that promise a fixed percentage (say 7% or 8%) regardless of market performance. The 175% multiplier can be powerful in good index years and flat in poor ones.

When you activate income, your withdrawal percentage is set by your age. The single-life percentages run from 2.00% at ages 50-54 up to 6.00% at age 90 and above, with joint-life percentages roughly half a point lower. At the common activation ages, a 65-year-old single owner takes 3.50% of the Income Base, a 70-year-old takes 4.00%, and a 75-year-old takes 4.50%. Those are on the conservative side, which is part of why the Income Base bonus and roll-up matter so much — they are doing the work to lift the dollar payout. The minimum age to begin lifetime income is 50.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the crediting menu itself, since it directly fuels the income roll-up. Velocity offers 14 indexed strategies across seven indices, including the S&P 500, the S&P 500 Distance Stabilizer TCA Index, the MSCI Mkt MediaStats Multi-Asset Index, the RAFI Harvey GS Index, two Shiller Barclays indices, and the WisdomTree Siegel Strategic Value Index. All use biennial (two-year) term end point crediting with a participation rate, and none of them carry a cap — so in a strong two-year stretch there is no ceiling on the credit.

There is a tradeoff worth naming. Some of the higher participation-rate strategies (participation rates as of May 1, 2026 ranged from 45% all the way to 250% depending on the index and strategy) carry a 0.95% Annual Strategy Charge deducted monthly from the Accumulation Value. So the most aggressive-looking participation rates are not free — you pay for the higher exposure, which erodes the cash value if the index underperforms. The buyer needs to decide whether the charged strategies are worth it for their situation.

This annuity is built for long-term retirement dollars, not short-term cash needs. The free-withdrawal allowance is the greater of 10% of the Accumulation Value or 10% of the initial premium, and it is available immediately in all years — which is more generous than the typical FIA that makes you wait until year two. Amounts above that free amount during the 10-year surrender period are hit with both a withdrawal charge (starting at 9.6% in year one and declining to 1% in year ten) and a Market Value Adjustment, or MVA — a feature that lets your surrender penalty move up or down with interest rates. The MVA does not apply in Missouri.

There is meaningful RMD relief. Withdrawal charges, the MVA, and any Premium Bonus Vesting Adjustment are all waived on required minimum distributions taken after age 73. The contract also includes a Confinement Waiver and a Terminal Illness Waiver at no extra charge after the first contract year (with some state exclusions — the Confinement Waiver is not available in California or Massachusetts, and the Terminal Illness Waiver is not available in California). Even with those provisions, this is not a contract to treat like an emergency fund.

The headline here is what you do not pay: the income rider costs 0.00%. That is a real differentiator, since competing income FIAs routinely charge 1% or more of the Income Base for an equivalent rider. The base contract also has no explicit annual fee.

The costs that do exist are situational. If you allocate to one of the strategies that carries the 0.95% Annual Strategy Charge, that fee comes out of your Accumulation Value monthly regardless of how the index performs. If you elect one of the optional Family Endowment Rider death-benefit riders (FER VI or FER Max III), that adds a 0.85% annual charge on the benefit base — and electing it also cuts your initial Income Base bonus from 30% to 15% and brings a Premium Bonus Vesting Adjustment that is 0% in years one through ten and only vests in year eleven in most states. So the death-benefit enhancement is not free in either dollars or income-base terms. The cleanest, lowest-cost way to own this contract is the base income configuration without the charged strategies or the optional death-benefit riders.

Legal Entity: Athene Annuity and Life Company

Parent: Athene Holding Ltd.

AM Best Rating: A+