Heritage Premier Plus 5 review

Depends on what you're optimizing for. If you want a 5-year guaranteed-rate contract with above-average protection against long-term-care and health emergencies, Heritage Premier Plus 5 is a reasonable, if not exceptional, choice — the 5.15% base rate is competitive but not top-of-market for the 5-year MYGA category, and the health waivers are a genuine value-add. If your priority is flexible penalty-free access to your money along the way, this isn't the right product. Capitol Life's own Heritage Classic 5 sibling, with its 10%-of-value annual free withdrawal, or a MYGA from another carrier with similar liquidity, would serve that need better.

The main reason to buy Heritage Premier Plus 5 is the combination of a guaranteed 5-year rate and the Health Waiver Benefits package. Someone locking up $10,000 or more for five years gets a modestly enhanced first-year credited rate (6.15%, versus the 5.15% base rate that applies afterward) plus a real safety valve: if a nursing home stay, terminal illness diagnosis, disability, or home health care need arises, surrender charges are waived on withdrawals up to 10% of accumulated value in year one and up to 50% of accumulated value thereafter. For someone weighing MYGAs primarily on rate and disclosure quality, that waiver package is a legitimate point of differentiation from a plain-vanilla 5-year MYGA.

This product is best suited to buyers who have non-qualified or qualified dollars they can commit for a full 5-year term, who see real value in the health-event surrender waivers, and who don't need routine access above interest earnings. Issue ages run 18-90, but the health waivers matter more as buyers move into their 60s, 70s, and 80s, where long-term-care risk is more immediate. It is not a fit for younger accumulators who might want systematic 10%-style withdrawals, or for California and New York residents, since the product isn't approved in either state.

Strip away the brand name and this is a straightforward single-premium deferred annuity with a declared, guaranteed interest rate for five years. You are not buying market exposure of any kind — "Premier Plus" in the name doesn't refer to an indexed or bonus-heavy structure, it refers to this carrier's mid-tier MYGA share class, positioned between the shorter-liquidity Heritage Classic line (more free withdrawal access, different rate) and Heritage Elite (least liquidity, RMD-only access). The "1.00% first-year interest rate bonus" language in the materials is worth reading carefully: Wink's own product profile flags this explicitly as an interest-rate bonus, not a premium bonus — it does not add anything to your account value, it just means your credited rate in year one (6.15%) is higher than the base rate (5.15%) that applies in years two through five. After the bonus year, you're earning the same 5.15% as anyone who bought without the promotional first year.

The core feature is the declared-rate crediting structure. Capitol Life guarantees a 5.15% base rate for the full 5-year term and adds a 1.00% first-year interest rate bonus on top, producing a 6.15% credited rate in year one only. From year two onward, the credited rate reverts to the 5.15% guaranteed base. This is a common MYGA design — it lets the carrier advertise a higher headline number while the guarantee that actually matters over a 5-year holding period is the 5.15% base rate, which is what an apples-to-apples MYGA rate comparison should really use.

The second most important feature is the Health Waiver Benefits bundle: nursing home confinement, terminal illness, disability, and home health care waivers. In year one, up to 10% of accumulated value can be withdrawn surrender-charge-free under these triggers; after year one, that expands to up to 50% of accumulated value. This matters because it converts an otherwise rigid 5-year lockup into a contract with a real escape hatch for the health events that actually derail retirement plans — as long as the buyer meets the qualifying condition, which is a materially different (and narrower) form of access than a no-questions-asked free withdrawal.

Ordinary liquidity here is tight. After a 30-day waiting period, you can take systematic penalty-free withdrawals of interest earnings only — not principal — subject to a $100 minimum per withdrawal. That's meaningfully narrower than the 10%-of-accumulated-value annual free withdrawal on the carrier's own Heritage Classic 5, and it means any withdrawal that dips into principal during the 5-year term triggers the surrender charge schedule below, plus a Market Value Adjustment (MVA) — an adjustment that moves the surrender penalty up or down depending on how interest rates have shifted since issue. The Health Waiver Benefits (10% of value in year one, up to 50% thereafter) are the real relief valve for larger withdrawals, but only if a qualifying health event applies. This isn't a substitute for general-purpose liquidity.

There's no disclosed rider fee here. The Health Waiver Benefits are included in the base contract rather than sold as a separately-priced rider, and no income rider is offered on this product at all, so there's no 0.90%-1.10%-style annual charge to weigh. The tradeoff instead lives inside the rate structure and withdrawal terms rather than an explicit fee line: the 0.15% Minimum Guaranteed Surrender Value (MGSV) floor is disclosed only as a minimum guaranteed annual return, without the percentage-of-premium accumulation basis (something like "87.5% of premium at X%") that fuller MYGA disclosures typically include. That's a gap in the available materials, not necessarily a red flag on its own, but it's worth asking the carrier or your advisor to confirm the full MGSV formula before committing funds.

Legal Entity: Capitol Life Insurance Company

Parent: Liberty Bankers Insurance Group

A.M. Best Rating: A-