Sundance 5-Year review

It can be, but only if you verify the rate first. On paper, a 5.50% five-year MYGA with a built-in RMD-friendly withdrawal provision is a competitive product. In practice, that 5.50% figure comes from a Wink snapshot dated 5/13/2025, which is old enough that I would not be surprised if the actual current rate CL Life is crediting on new contracts is different — higher or lower. The fair answer is: this could be a good annuity, but you need a current quote to know, and you should also weigh that CL Life carries a B++ rating, below the A- floor we generally look for on longer-duration guarantees.

Someone buys a product like this for the simplest reason people buy any MYGA: a guaranteed fixed rate for a defined period, with no market risk and no index math to untangle. If CL Life is in fact still crediting something close to 5.50% today, that would be a genuinely strong five-year rate. The RMD-penalty-free rider is also a real reason to buy — it means an IRA owner using this contract for required distributions isn't boxed in by the standard interest-only free withdrawal once year two arrives. But the honest version of "why buy" here has an asterisk: you would be buying based on a rate you have to reconfirm, not the number printed in this review.

I think this fits someone who has already gotten a fresh quote directly from CL Life or their agent, likes what they see, is comfortable with a B++ carrier, and doesn't need the money for five years. It also fits an IRA owner who specifically wants the RMD-penalty-free feature layered onto a MYGA, since that's a genuine structural advantage over a plain vanilla five-year product with no such carve-out. It is a poor fit for anyone comparison-shopping purely off this review's headline rate, anyone who wants A- or better financial strength, and anyone in one of the roughly 25 states where CL Life isn't approved to sell it.

You are buying a straightforward insurance contract that credits a single declared fixed rate for five years, backed by CL Life's claims-paying ability rather than any market index. There's no crediting strategy to choose, no cap or participation rate to track — just one rate, guaranteed for the term, with a 1.00% minimum guaranteed rate if CL Life were ever to reset it lower at renewal. The real product here is simplicity and a guarantee, and the real risk is that the guarantee is only as good as a B++ carrier and a rate you haven't personally reconfirmed.

The core feature is the fixed account itself. You deposit at least $20,000, CL Life credits one declared rate — on file at 5.50%, though again that figure is over a year stale — for the full five-year surrender period, and at maturity you can renew, walk away, or roll the funds elsewhere. There's no banding by premium size on this product, so a $20,000 deposit and a $500,000 deposit earn the identical rate. The floor under the whole contract is a 1.00% guaranteed minimum annual interest rate, which matters most if you renew into a future term when rates have fallen. This is about as simple as an annuity gets: one number, one term, no moving parts.

The secondary feature worth calling out is the combination of a fairly tight standard free withdrawal with a more generous RMD carve-out. Baseline, you can only take out accumulated interest — up to the prior 12 months' worth — free of surrender charges and MVA, and only after the first 30 days of the contract. That's noticeably tighter than the 10%-of-value free withdrawal common on many MYGAs. But starting in contract year two, CL Life's included RMD-penalty-free provision lets required minimum distributions that exceed the standard free amount come out without triggering surrender charges. For an IRA owner using this as one piece of a distribution strategy, that rider closes a real gap that the base contract would otherwise leave open.

This is not a liquid product, and it shouldn't be treated as one. Outside of the interest-only free withdrawal (and the RMD carve-out after year two), any money pulled out during the five-year surrender period is subject to both the declining charge schedule below and a market value adjustment, which can cut either way depending on where interest rates have moved since issue. The 9/8/7/6/5 schedule is a standard duration-matched design for a five-year MYGA — nothing punitive, but nothing to plan around if you think you'll need broader access to principal in years one through five.

There's no explicit contract fee, rider fee, or premium bonus to weigh here — this is a fee-free, bonus-free MYGA, which is typical for the category and keeps the math simple. The real tradeoffs are structural rather than fee-based. First and biggest: the headline rate is unverifiable as current, so any comparison you make against other MYGAs using the 5.50% figure could be comparing against a number that no longer applies. Second, the standard free withdrawal is interest-only, tighter than the 10%-of-value access many competing MYGAs offer, though the RMD rider softens that for IRA money starting in year two. Third, CL Life's B++ rating sits below the A- threshold we generally want to see, which matters more the longer you're locking money up — and five years is a real commitment. None of these tradeoffs are disqualifying by themselves, but stacked together they're why this earns a middling rather than strong rating.

Legal Entity: CL Life and Annuity Insurance Company

A.M. Best Rating: B++