Farmers Harvest 7-Year review

It depends on what you're weighing more heavily: rate or rating. On crediting terms alone, this is a genuinely competitive 7-year FIA — no annual base fee, a 9.25% cap, and participation rates as high as 140% on the Bloomberg Global Momentum strategy. On carrier strength, Farmers Life's B++ rating is below what most of the top-selling names in this category carry, and I think that matters more for annuity buyers than for most other insurance purchases, because the promise is decades long. For a buyer comfortable with a mid-tier carrier in exchange for stronger terms, this is a good annuity. For a risk-averse buyer who wants the strongest possible balance sheet behind the guarantee, it is not the first name to reach for.

Someone would buy this contract to grow a lump sum with principal protection and meaningful index-linked upside, without paying for a rider they don't plan to use. The lack of any base contract fee is a real advantage — you keep 100% of the crediting rate the index formulas produce rather than seeing a chunk of it eaten by administrative charges. The automatic Enhanced Death Benefit Rider, which pays the full contract value to beneficiaries at no cost, is also a genuine draw for someone thinking about legacy as much as growth. And because this is the base, no-bonus variant, it carries the highest caps and participation rates of any product in the Farmers Harvest lineup.

This product is best suited to someone in their 50s through mid-70s with non-qualified or qualified retirement dollars who wants 7 years of principal-protected growth, doesn't need an income rider, and is comfortable holding a contract with a carrier one tier below the A-range names. It's a reasonable fit for someone prioritizing legacy planning, since the death benefit passes the full contract value with no fee drag. It is not a fit for someone who wants guaranteed lifetime income built into the contract, needs the annuity available in a state like California, Florida, or New York (all excluded), or wants the strongest possible carrier rating regardless of rate.

You are buying an insurance contract, not a market investment. Your premium doesn't go into the index — it earns interest based on formulas tied to index performance, with your principal protected from direct market loss. In exchange for giving up some of the index's upside (through the cap or participation rate), you get a guaranteed floor: your account value can't drop because the S&P 500 or another index had a bad year. Layered on top is a no-cost death benefit that pays your full contract value to beneficiaries, and an optional add-on at application — the Enhanced Liquidity Package — that can waive surrender charges if you're diagnosed with a terminal illness or need extended nursing care, paid for through slightly lower crediting rather than a stated dollar fee.

The contract offers three indexed crediting methods — Annual Point-to-Point Cap, Annual Point-to-Point Participation Rate with no cap, and a Fixed Account — spread across four indices: the S&P 500, the S&P U.S. Dividend Growers VA RC2 7.5% Index, the Nasdaq-100 Volatility Control 7% Index, and the Bloomberg Global Momentum Diversified Leaders 5% ER Index. As of the brochure's 11/17/2025 snapshot, the S&P 500 cap strategy credits up to 9.25% annually. The uncapped participation strategies run from 45% on the S&P 500 up to 140% on the Bloomberg Global Momentum index, 115% on the Nasdaq-100 Volatility Control index, and 90% on the S&P Dividend Growers index. The Fixed Account currently pays 4.00%. These are current-as-of-brochure figures, not guarantees — index crediting rates reset annually and will move with the market and the carrier's declared terms.

Two things are worth understanding about this base version specifically. First, "base" here means no premium bonus and no enhanced-fee crediting — and that's precisely why the caps and participation rates are the highest in the Farmers Harvest family. The premium-bonus sibling variants trade lower crediting for an upfront account-value bonus; this contract skips that trade entirely. Second, an "Enhanced" version of each strategy exists as a separate 0.95% annual fee option that raises caps and participation further — that fee doesn't apply here unless you actively elect it.

The Enhanced Death Benefit Rider is automatically included at no additional cost and pays the full contract value — not a reduced surrender value — to beneficiaries as a lump sum or through available payout options. That's a meaningfully better legacy outcome than contracts where the death benefit is only the greater of contract value or a minimum guaranteed floor, since here there's no ambiguity: it's the full account value, period. Prior withdrawals do reduce what's left to pay out, which is worth remembering if you're drawing income from the contract along the way. Because this is the base, no-bonus variant, it's also the only branch of the Farmers Harvest family eligible to add the optional Enhanced Liquidity Package, which layers in surrender-charge and MVA relief for terminal illness or extended nursing care — a feature the premium-bonus versions of this product cannot elect at all.

The 7-year surrender schedule starts at 9% in year one and steps down by a point each year to 3% in year seven, disappearing entirely after that. A market value adjustment (MVA — an additional interest-rate-sensitive adjustment that can increase or decrease your surrender penalty depending on where rates have moved since issue) applies on top of the surrender charge during that same window, so withdrawals beyond the free amount in a rising-rate environment could cost more than the surrender schedule alone suggests. After the first contract year, you can withdraw the greater of 10% of the prior anniversary's contract value or your RMD amount (if this is a qualified account) without triggering either charge, as long as at least $2,000 remains in the contract. RMDs specifically are exempt from both surrender charges and MVA after year one even if they exceed that 10% threshold, which makes this a workable, if not ideal, home for qualified money that will need to satisfy required distributions during the surrender period.

The headline here is what you don't pay: there is no disclosed annual contract fee, mortality and expense charge, product fee, or administration charge on the base contract. The 0.95% annual fee only applies if you actively elect an Enhanced crediting strategy — and choosing that trade means you're paying for a higher cap or participation rate rather than accepting Farmers Life's standard, fee-free terms. The real cost of this contract isn't a line-item fee — it's the upside you give up to the cap or participation rate itself, which is the standard tradeoff for any principal-protected indexed annuity. The other cost to weigh is less visible on a rate sheet: Farmers Life's B++ A.M. Best rating means the guarantee behind these numbers comes from a carrier with a thinner capital cushion than the A-rated names that dominate this category, and that's a real factor for a contract you may hold for a decade or more.