Graybar Ascend with Bonus review

Depends, and for most people the honest answer is no — not versus its own sibling. It is a functioning principal-protected FIA, so it is not a bad contract in isolation. But it exists next to the plain Graybar Ascend, which is the same product without the bonus and with meaningfully higher crediting. Once you account for the slow vesting and the lower rates, the bonus version comes out behind for nearly every holding period, which is a hard thing to overlook.

The rational reason is narrow: you want the largest possible account value on day one, you are certain you will hold past year 11 when the bonus fully vests, and a higher early account balance matters to you for its own sake — for example, for the death benefit optics in the early years. The emotional reason is the 14% headline, which looks like free money. The problem is that the higher starting balance is funded by lower crediting for the entire life of the contract, so unless the death-benefit timing works precisely in your favor, you are usually paying more than the bonus is worth.

I think this product only makes sense for a specific buyer: someone with a long, certain time horizon who understands the vesting schedule, is buying with non-qualified or qualified retirement money they genuinely will not touch, and has consciously decided the front-loaded account value is worth giving up crediting. It is a poor fit for anyone who might need liquidity, anyone shopping primarily on long-term growth, and anyone comparing it against the base Graybar Ascend — because that buyer will almost always find the plain version does more with the same dollars.

You are not buying an extra 14% of value. You are buying a bookkeeping entry of 14% added to your account at issue, in exchange for a permanent reduction in how fast that account grows. Ceres is not giving anything away — the bonus is prepaid by you through lower rates, and it only becomes fully yours after 11 years. In the meantime the money is locked behind a 10-year surrender wall, a market value adjustment, and a clawback that recaptures the unvested part of the bonus if you take out more than 10% a year. So the real purchase is a principal-protected FIA with a slower engine and a big number stamped on the front.

The 14% bonus is credited to your contract value on your single premium at issue, but it vests on a 10-year schedule. Nothing is vested in year one, then roughly 1.4 percentage points vest each year — about 12.6% is vested by year 10, and the full 14% only becomes yours in year 11 and beyond. Until it vests, the unvested portion is at risk: withdraw more than the 10% annual penalty-free amount during the first 10 years, or surrender, and Ceres claws back whatever has not yet vested. Concretely, a buyer who walks away in year one keeps none of the bonus and also eats a 10% surrender charge plus a market value adjustment. A buyer who leaves in the mid years keeps only a fraction.

Now the part that decides whether the bonus is worth anything: the crediting it costs you. As of the 2/17/2026 rate snapshot, the fixed account on this version pays 3.50% versus 5.00% on the no-bonus Graybar Ascend — a 1.50-point drag every year. On a $100,000 premium held in the fixed account, the plain version grows to roughly $162,900 by year 10, while this version starts at $114,000 but grows at the slower 3.50% to about $160,800 gross — and only 12.6% of the bonus is vested at that point, so surrendering claws back the rest. On raw account value the base version pulls ahead around year nine, and even if you hold all the way to year 11 for full vesting, the base reaches roughly $171,000 against about $166,400 here — the plain product still wins by around $4,600. The 14% bonus never catches up to the crediting it costs. This mirrors what we've seen on other bonus-versus-base pairs in this space (Farmers Life, Heartland): the base almost always wins.

The index strategies matter because they widen the same gap, not close it. This version caps the S&P 500 annual point-to-point at 6.00% versus 9.25% on the base, and trims every participation rate — 30% versus 55% on the uncapped S&P 500 strategy, 50% versus 80% on the S&P 500 Dynamic Intraday TCA Index, and 120% versus 150% on the S&P 500 Multi-Asset Risk Control 5% Index. In a strong index year, the base product captures far more of the move, so the buyer who chose the bonus for growth loses even more ground. In a flat or down year both credit little and the 14% head start lingers longer, but that is a bet on weak markets, which is a strange reason to buy a growth-oriented FIA. All of these are snapshot figures as of 2/17/2026 — roughly five months stale as of this writing — and can reset, so confirm current rates and bonus terms before signing anything.

This is a 10-year commitment, and the bonus makes it stickier than a normal FIA. You can take up to 10% of account value per year after the first contract year without penalty. Anything above that during the first 10 years triggers three things at once: a surrender charge (10% in year one, declining one point a year to 1% in year 10), a market value adjustment (MVA — your penalty moves with interest rates, and can cut deeper if rates have risen), and bonus recapture of the unvested portion. That stack means early access is expensive in a way the free-withdrawal line alone doesn't show. The contract does include surrender-charge waivers for nursing-home confinement and terminal illness, which help in a genuine health event. But this should be treated as money you are locking away for a decade, not a flexible savings vehicle.

There is no explicit annual contract fee, no M&E charge, and no rider fee disclosed — the cost of this product is not a line item, it's the crediting haircut. That's the honest way to read it: you pay for the 14% bonus through a lower fixed rate, a lower cap, and lower participation rates for the entire life of the contract. The death benefit is the greater of full account value or the minimum guaranteed surrender value, though how the unvested bonus is treated at death is not spelled out in the available materials, so a legacy-minded buyer should ask Ceres directly whether beneficiaries receive the unvested portion. The MGSV floor is 87.5% of premium accumulated at 0.15%-3%. And the carrier itself, at A.M. Best B++, sits below the strength grade many shoppers set as a floor, which is worth weighing on a 10-year contract.

Legal Entity: Ceres Life Insurance Company

Parent: Salem Group Holdings

A.M. Best Rating: B++