Graybar IncomePlus review

It depends entirely on what you want. If you want guaranteed lifetime income and plan to defer it for several years, this is a reasonable option — the base-building features are competitive and income can begin as early as age 50. If you want accumulation, flexibility, or the ability to opt out of a lifetime income rider, this is the wrong product, because you would be paying an unavoidable rider fee for a feature you do not intend to use, while accepting deliberately capped growth.

The rational reason to buy Graybar IncomePlus is to lock in a future stream of protected lifetime income while your money sits in a principal-protected contract. The 25% benefit-base bonus and the 7.00% compound roll-up mean the figure your income is eventually calculated from grows briskly during the deferral years, and the 8% account-value bonus adds real dollars to your cash side as well. For someone who has already decided they want lifetime income and is willing to wait to switch it on, those base-building mechanics are the draw.

I think this annuity is best for a pre-retiree or early retiree — realistically someone in their late 50s to early 70s, though income can start as young as 50 — who wants to convert a lump sum into guaranteed lifetime income and expects to defer for several years before drawing. It fits a buyer using long-term, qualified or non-qualified money they will not need for liquidity. It is a poor fit for anyone who wants growth, wants short-term access to principal, is uneasy about a B++ carrier holding a multi-decade obligation, or simply does not want to pay for a lifetime income rider they may never activate.

You are not buying market upside, and you are barely buying accumulation. You are buying a lifetime income framework wrapped around a principal-protected annuity. The most important thing to understand is that this product tracks two completely different numbers. One is your **Accumulation Value** — your actual, withdrawable cash, which grows through modest index crediting and the vested portion of the 8% premium bonus. The other is your **Benefit Base** — an accounting figure used only to calculate your lifetime income. The Benefit Base is inflated by the 25% bonus and the 7.00% roll-up, but those are not dollars you can withdraw, surrender, or leave to heirs as cash. Confusing the two is the single most common mistake buyers make in this product class, and the marketing math leans on that confusion. The big-looking numbers describe your income base, not your money.

The core feature is the built-in Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit. It is not optional and cannot be terminated at your request — it comes bundled into the base contract, and its 1.10% current charge is unavoidable. At issue, the GLWB Benefit Base is set and immediately boosted by a one-time 25% bonus. From there it grows at a 7.00% compound annual roll-up, guaranteed for the first ten contract years or until you start income, whichever comes first, with no reset afterward. When you eventually activate income, your guaranteed lifetime withdrawal is a percentage of that accumulated Benefit Base.

Here is the important gap: the brochure does not print a payout-factor table. Ceres states that the withdrawal percentages vary by your attained age and by how many years you deferred, and that current figures are available only through the carrier directly. That means you cannot see, from the published materials alone, what income a given Benefit Base actually produces — you have to get a quote from Ceres. Do not accept a projected income figure without confirming both the payout percentage and the deferral assumption behind it.

The secondary feature is the 8.00% account-value premium bonus, and it matters because it is the one bonus that touches real, withdrawable money — unlike the 25% benefit-base bonus. But it comes with a string attached: it vests over ten years on a recapture schedule. Surrender or over-withdraw early and Ceres claws back the unvested portion (100% recapture in year one, declining to fully vested by year 11). So the 8% is real, but it is not fully yours until you have held the contract through the surrender period. Treat it as a reward for staying, not as day-one cash.

Two smaller features round out the contract: a death benefit equal to the greater of the Accumulation Value or the Minimum Guaranteed Cash Surrender Value, and an Enhanced Annual Withdrawal Benefit that boosts income if you become unable to perform activities of daily living — a care-support enhancement built into the GLWB rather than a separate rider.

This is a ten-year commitment, and it should be treated as long-term retirement money, not accessible savings. After the first contract anniversary you can withdraw up to 10% of the Accumulation Value each year free of surrender charge and MVA, and RMDs on qualified accounts are free of surrender charge from year one. Everything above that runs into the surrender schedule below, plus a Market Value Adjustment — an MVA means your surrender cost also moves with interest rates, and can rise if rates have climbed since you bought.

One trap specific to this product: before you activate income, any withdrawal from the Accumulation Value — even one inside the 10% free amount — reduces the GLWB Benefit Base proportionally, which permanently lowers your future guaranteed income. Nursing home and terminal illness waivers of the surrender charge are both included at no extra cost, which is genuinely useful, but the everyday message stands: taking money out early quietly damages the very income you bought this for.

The fee that matters is the GLWB charge: **1.10% of the Benefit Base currently, deducted from your Accumulation Value.** Name the trade honestly — that 1.10% buys the 25% bonus, the 7.00% roll-up, and the lifetime income guarantee, which is a fair exchange only if you actually turn income on. If you never activate income, you are paying every year for a benefit you never use, and you cannot cancel the rider to stop the charge.

The bigger caution is the guaranteed maximum: the charge can rise as high as **2.50%.** The materials do not spell out a schedule for if or when Ceres could move the current 1.10% toward that cap, and 2.50% is a steep number for a rider fee — high enough that it would meaningfully erode the Accumulation Value over a long deferral. Buyers should ask directly under what conditions the charge can increase. On top of the explicit fee, the structural tradeoff is accumulation: the S&P 500 annual point-to-point cap was just 3.50% as of the last snapshot, so the growth side is deliberately thin to fund the income guarantees.

A note on the rates: the figures here are drawn from a Wink rate report dated 2/17/2026, roughly five months old as of this review. Caps, participation rates, and the fixed-account rate all change — confirm the current numbers with Ceres before quoting.

Legal Entity: Ceres Life Insurance Company

Parent: Salem Group Holdings

A.M. Best Rating: B++

Ceres Life carries an A.M. Best rating of B++, and is not rated by S&P. For an accumulation product a B++ carrier would be a modest concern; for a lifetime-income product it deserves real weight. The entire promise here is that the carrier will keep paying you for as long as you live, potentially decades from now. B++ is well below the A-tier carriers that back most competing income annuities, and that is a legitimate reason to weigh this contract more cautiously than its features alone would suggest.