MarketTen Bonus Index review

Yes, for the right buyer. This is a good annuity for someone who wants principal-protected accumulation, likes the idea of an immediate boost to their account value, and can genuinely leave the money alone for ten years. It is less appealing for someone who needs meaningful liquidity, wants guaranteed lifetime income through a rider, or is unwilling to pay the annual buy-up fee to get to the more competitive caps.

The main reason to buy MarketTen Bonus Index is the premium bonus. Adding a double-digit percentage to your account value on day one gives the contract a larger base to compound on, and because the bonus here is fully vested from the start, you are not signing up to earn it back over a decade the way many bonus products require. The secondary reason is principal protection with index-linked upside — your account value cannot fall because of market losses, and you have several ways to pursue interest credits. In practice, this is the annuity someone buys when they want more growth potential than a plain fixed annuity offers, value the upfront bonus, and are certain the money is not needed for a long time.

I think MarketTen Bonus Index is best for a conservative accumulation buyer, often somewhere in the 55-to-75 range, who is repositioning money they will not touch for a decade and wants the account value to start larger than the premium they put in. It fits both qualified and non-qualified money, and the wide issue-age window (0 to 80) makes it flexible for legacy-minded planning too, since the full account value including the bonus passes to beneficiaries without surrender charges. It is a poor fit for anyone who expects to need more than the 10% annual free withdrawal, who wants a shorter commitment, or whose primary goal is turning on guaranteed lifetime income — this product has no income rider at all.

You are not buying direct stock market participation, and you are not really buying "free" money. You are buying a principal-protected insurance contract that credits interest based on index formulas, plus an upfront bonus that the insurer funds by holding your premium under a long surrender schedule. That framing matters. The bonus is a real, vested addition to your account value — not a phantom figure on a separate income base — but the tradeoff for it is time and reduced liquidity. Read this way, the product is coherent: a bigger starting balance and downside protection in exchange for a ten-year commitment and caps that are modest unless you pay to raise them.

The core feature is the account-value premium bonus. The bonus — currently listed at 11% on the Wink product profile, though the older EquiTrust consumer brochure and agent guide both describe an 8% bonus — is applied to premiums paid during the first five contract years and credited directly to your Accumulation Value. Two details make it unusually clean. First, it is an account-value bonus, so it lands on the same balance your crediting strategies grow, not on a benefit base you can only tap as income. Second, it is immediately vested, meaning there is no vesting schedule to earn it back and no bonus-specific clawback if you surrender early; only the ordinary surrender charge and MVA apply to your account value. That is genuinely better than the many bonus FIAs that phase vesting in over the surrender term. On the conflicting figures: bonus rates are a snapshot and carriers reset them, so treat the exact percentage as current-as-of-the-rate-sheet rather than a permanent contract term, and confirm the number in force on the day you would apply.

Growth on top of the bonus comes from a deep crediting menu — ten indexed strategies across the S&P 500, the S&P 500 Dynamic Intraday TCA, the S&P MARC 5% Excess Return, and the Barclays Focus50 indices, plus a 1-Year Interest fixed account (a 3.25% declared rate as of the 3/10/2026 profile). The strategies include point-to-point caps, participation-rate methods, a monthly cap, a monthly average, a performance trigger, and a two-year option, so you can position the contract for different market behaviors.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the crediting flexibility, and specifically the "buy-up" strategies. On the standard S&P 500 point-to-point cap, the no-fee cap sits around 5.75%; pay a 1% annual fee and the buy-up version raises that to roughly 8.00%. That is a real lever — for buyers who believe the higher cap will earn its keep, it can lift results, but the 1% comes out of your account value every year whether or not the index cooperates, so it is a bet, not a free upgrade. The value of the whole menu is that you are not locked into one formula: someone who wants zero drag can stay in the no-fee strategies, while someone comfortable paying for a higher ceiling has that path. As always with these indices, some of the risk-controlled options carry embedded costs inside the index itself, so it pays to understand what each strategy is actually doing before allocating.

This is a ten-year commitment, and the front end is stiff: the surrender charge holds at 10% for the first four contract years before stepping down. On top of that, a market value adjustment (MVA) applies — that means a withdrawal subject to surrender charges can be adjusted up or down depending on where interest rates have moved, adding a second variable to the cost of getting out early. After the first year you can take up to 10% of the prior anniversary's Accumulation Value each year free of surrender charges and MVA, and in year one you can draw interest from the fixed account systematically. Beyond that free amount, the charges bite.

State rules soften some edges: California drops the MVA entirely and shortens the schedule to nine years, but the product is not approved in New York, and annuitization terms differ in Texas and Florida. The death benefit is a bright spot — beneficiaries receive the full Accumulation Value, including 100% of the premium bonus, with no surrender charge or MVA. Even so, this should be treated as long-term money, not a reserve you might need to reach.

There is no explicit annual fee on the base contract. The fee you can choose to pay is the 1% annual charge on the optional buy-up strategies, deducted from your account value at the start of each contract year and guaranteed for the life of the contract — and it applies even in years the index is flat or negative. Whether it is worth it depends entirely on whether the higher caps outrun the drag over time, which no one can promise in advance. The other tradeoffs are structural rather than line-item: the ten-year surrender with an MVA, caps that are unremarkable in the no-fee strategies, and a carrier — EquiTrust, an entity owned by Magic Johnson Enterprises — carrying an A.M. Best rating of B++. That rating is solidly in "good" territory but sits below the A-range carriers many shoppers compare against, and financial strength is worth weighing on a contract you plan to hold for a decade.

Legal Entity: EquiTrust Life Insurance Company

Parent: Magic Johnson Enterprises

A.M. Best Rating: B++