Why it earned this rating
Our assessment
Passport 1 earns a Niche Fit rating because its core structure is a mismatch: a one-year rate guarantee attached to a seven-year surrender schedule, with no bailout provision if the annual renewal rate underwhelms. The A+ carrier rating, automatic 100%-of-premium return guarantee, and genuine hardship waivers keep it off the bottom of the scale, but the absence of any rate-triggered exit is a real structural weakness compared to longer-guarantee siblings in the same family, where the locked period covers more of the surrender commitment.
The short version
This is a 7-year fixed annuity from Columbus Life where the 5.85% headline rate — the highest of the six Passport variants as of the 4/1/2026 snapshot — applies for exactly one year. After that, Columbus Life sets a new rate every year at its own discretion, bounded only by a contractual floor of 1%-3%. If a renewal rate disappoints and you want out before year seven, you pay a surrender charge; there is no special provision letting you leave penalty-free just because the rate came in low. Read literally, this product asks you to make a seven-year commitment on the strength of a one-year price.
Key facts
The full review
Is Columbus Life Passport 1 a Good Annuity?
It depends on what you're actually shopping for. If you want a guaranteed 5.85% for a full year with a carrier-backed return-of-premium floor and you're prepared to stay in the contract for the full seven years no matter how the renewal rates land, it's a reasonable option from a financially strong carrier. If you're shopping the 5.85% number expecting it to represent your ongoing yield, or you want the flexibility to walk away if renewals disappoint, this is not the right product — that flexibility simply doesn't exist here.
Why Someone Would Buy This Annuity
The rational case for Passport 1 is the headline rate itself. Among Columbus Life's six Passport variants, all sharing the same 4/1/2026 rate snapshot, the 1-year guarantee pays the most: 5.85%, versus 3.80% for the 2-year, 3.75% for the 3-year, 3.65% for the 4- and 5-year, and 3.50% for the 7-year. A buyer who wants the biggest first-year number, doesn't need the money for seven years regardless, and is optimistic that renewal rates will trend upward from wherever they reset could reasonably choose this over a longer initial guarantee.
Who This Annuity Is Best For
I think Passport 1 fits a fairly narrow buyer: someone with genuinely seven-year money, who is comfortable with reinvestment risk on the annual renewals, and who is betting that Columbus Life's future declared rates — or at least the 1%-3% statutory floor beneath them — will be acceptable over time. It's a poor fit for someone who wants rate certainty beyond year one, someone who might need to exit early if the deal turns bad, or someone comparing this to a true multi-year-guarantee product and assuming the 5.85% carries forward.
What You're Really Buying Here
Strip away the Passport branding and this is a return-of-premium-guaranteed fixed annuity where only the first twelve months of interest are contractually locked. Everything after that is a one-year-at-a-time renewal that Columbus Life declares annually, with no obligation to keep it anywhere near competitive — the only hard floor is the 1%-3% minimum guaranteed rate set by state law at issue. You are not buying a multi-year rate ladder. You are buying one strong year, six unknown years, and a seven-year surrender schedule that doesn't care which of those years you got.
How the Core Feature Works
The 5.85% year-one rate includes a first-year-only 2% interest rate enhancement — Wink's product profile is explicit that this is a rate enhancement, not a premium bonus, meaning it boosts the credited interest rate rather than adding money to the account value. Once year one ends, that enhancement drops off and the contract moves straight into an annually declared renewal rate; based on the enhancement math, a reasonable non-guaranteed estimate for the year-two renewal is around 3.85%, though that number is not contractual and can move. From year two forward, Columbus Life redeclares the rate every twelve months at its own discretion, subject only to the 1%-3% guaranteed minimum set at issue.
Why the Secondary Feature Matters
The feature that keeps this from being a pure gamble is the money-back guarantee: the cash surrender value can never fall below 100% of premium paid (adjusted for withdrawals), accruing at that same 1%-3% guaranteed minimum. That protection is automatic and comes at no extra cost. It doesn't solve the rate-mismatch problem — you still can't get to that guaranteed value early without paying a surrender charge — but it does mean the downside on renewal rates is a floor of 1%-3%, not zero, and the account value itself is never at risk of erosion below principal.
Liquidity and Surrender Schedule
The surrender schedule here is a genuine seven-year commitment: 7%, 7%, 7%, 6%, 5%, 4%, 3%. There is no market value adjustment, so the surrender charge is the only penalty mechanism, but it applies uniformly regardless of why you're leaving — including if you're leaving because the renewal rate disappointed you. Neither the Client Guide nor the Quick Reference discloses any bailout window or rate-triggered penalty-free exit; the Client Guide's money-back guarantee language states only that the contract can be canceled at any time, subject to surrender charge through year seven. Outside of that, your only surrender-charge-free paths are the standard ones: the 10% annual free withdrawal, 30+ consecutive days of long-term-care or hospital confinement, a terminal illness diagnosis with a 12-month-or-less prognosis, IRS required minimum distributions or 72(t) substantially equal periodic payments, annuitization (at least two years after issue with five or more years of level payments), or death.
Fees and Tradeoffs
There's no explicit policy fee or administrative charge on this contract — the tradeoff isn't a line-item cost, it's structural. You're accepting reinvestment risk on six of the seven years in exchange for the year-one rate being the highest in the family. If renewal rates hold up reasonably well, that trade works out fine. If they settle near the 1%-3% floor for an extended stretch, you're locked into a below-market rate with no penalty-free way out until the schedule runs its course.
Product snapshot
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Product Type | Fixed Annuity |
| Surrender Period | 7 years |
| Issue Ages | 0-89 (Wink product profile, current as of 4/1/2026, single band applying to both qualified and non-qualified). Older generic Passport literature gives a split figure instead -- Quick Reference CL 5.1027 (03/15): 0-89 non-qualified / 15-89 tax-qualified (rollover/transfer money only after age 69); Client Guide CL 5.817 (11/18): 18-89 for both -- the per-product Wink profile controls as the most current, most specific source. |
| Minimum Premium | $5,000 |
| Crediting Methods | Declared fixed rate (multi-rate/multi-year-guarantee SPDA) |
| Free Withdrawal | Up to 10% of account value may be withdrawn each contract year, beginning immediately, without surrender charge (non-cumulative, $250 minimum per withdrawal) |
| MGSV | 100% of premium paid (adjusted for withdrawals), accruing at a contractually guaranteed minimum annual rate of 1%-3% set at issue per state law (Wink profile: 'Minimum Guarantee/Minimum Guaranteed Surrender Value: Varies, 1-3% Guaranteed Annual Return'; Client Guide CL 5.817 (11/18), 'Money-Back Guarantee': cash surrender value guaranteed at least 100% of premium paid, adjusted for distributions). |
| Death Benefit | Full account value paid to designated beneficiary, without surrender charge, bypassing probate |
| Income Rider | Not available |
| Premium Bonus | None |
| Availability | Not available in NY. Wink profile lists product variations approved in FL and MS, and lists AK and OR as not approved for this variation; base consumer brochure states licensed in DC and all states except NY. |
Carrier snapshot
Legal Entity: Columbus Life Insurance Company
Parent: Western & Southern Financial Group
A.M. Best Rating: A+
Final take
Passport 1 is a genuinely useful product for a narrow buyer: someone who wants the biggest headline rate in the Passport family, has real seven-year money, and is comfortable trusting Columbus Life's annual renewal decisions — backed by nothing more than a 1%-3% statutory floor — for six years after the first. The A+ carrier rating and the automatic return-of-premium guarantee are real positives, and they're the reason this isn't rated lower.
But I'd steer most shoppers away from treating the 5.85% as anything more than a one-year teaser. If you like the idea of a multi-year rate lock, Columbus Life sells five other Passport variants that guarantee the rate for longer, even though the headline number is lower on all of them. And if there's any real chance you'd want to exit before year seven should the renewal rate disappoint, this contract gives you no penalty-free way to do that — plan around the full seven years, or look elsewhere.