Prosperity Elite 7 review

Depends on whether you'll use the features. For a buyer who wants the vesting bonus plus an income rider or an enhanced death benefit, this is a good annuity — the configurability is real and the index menu is broad. For someone who just wants protected accumulation with the lowest possible drag, it's less compelling, because the bonus is partly tied to paying rider charges and the fee stack can quietly erode credited interest. It's a good contract for the right configuration, not a universally good one.

The main reason to buy Prosperity Elite 7 is the combination of an upfront vesting bonus and a flexible feature menu inside a single contract. The Protection Package offers a 7% bonus for buyers age 70 and under, which boosts the starting account value (it vests over seven years, so it isn't fully yours until then). On top of that, you can attach a lifetime income rider with a 10% compound roll-up for up to ten years and an 18% benefit-base bonus, or lean into an enhanced death benefit instead. In practice, this is a product for someone who wants to commit long-term money and shape exactly how it grows, pays out, or transfers.

I think Prosperity Elite 7 is best for a pre-retiree or early retiree, roughly in the 55-75 window, who wants principal protection, likes the idea of a starting bonus, and has a specific job for the contract — future income or a stronger death benefit. It works for both qualified and non-qualified money, and the RMD-friendly withdrawal treatment makes it workable inside an IRA. It is less attractive for someone who wants the cleanest, lowest-fee accumulation FIA, someone who might need substantial liquidity in the first few years, or a younger buyer whose bonus would be reduced and who has a long horizon to outgrow the fee drag.

You are not buying stock-market participation. You are buying a principal-protected insurance contract with an optional bonus and a modular set of riders bolted on. The core is the same as any FIA — your money earns index-linked interest credited under one of several formulas, and it never credits below 0% in a down year. What makes Prosperity Elite different is the layering: a vesting bonus that isn't fully yours until year seven, an optional income base that grows on its own track separate from your real account value, and a death benefit you can upgrade. The important mental model is that the "income base" and "benefit base" are not cash you can walk away with — they're notional figures used to calculate guaranteed payouts, and they cost you a fee to maintain.

At its heart, Prosperity Elite 7 credits index-linked interest through five methods — annual point-to-point, biennial (two-year) point-to-point, monthly point-to-point, monthly average, and a performance trigger — across five indices including the S&P 500, a gold commodity index, and three engineered indices (Balanced Asset 5, GS Global Factor, and Barclays Trailblazer Sectors 5). A cap limits how much index gain is credited; a participation rate credits a stated percentage of the move; a spread subtracts a fixed amount before crediting; and the performance trigger pays a set rate whenever the index is flat or up. The spec lists participation rates ranging from 100% to 255%, caps from 2.25% to 7.75%, and spreads up to 0.85%, all varying by index and method and effective as of the November 2025 rate sheet. Those are point-in-time figures and the brochure flags them as medium-confidence, so anyone shopping this should pull the current rate sheet directly before allocating. The headline mechanic, though, is the vesting premium bonus: F&G adds a percentage of your first-year premium to the account value at issue, but you only keep the full bonus if you hold the contract seven years — early surrender forfeits the unvested portion.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the optional Enhanced Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit rider (EGMWB). It builds an income base that starts with an 18% bonus on your initial premium and grows at a 10% compound roll-up for up to ten years before you turn income on. That can produce a substantially higher guaranteed lifetime payout than your actual account value would support, which is the whole point of an income rider. The rider also includes an Impairment Multiplier — a chronic-illness feature that can increase withdrawals if you meet care triggers. The tradeoff is that none of this is free: the rider runs 0.35% to 1.00% of the income base annually, and choosing the Protection Package means a strategy carrying rider charges absorbs a 1.25% annual charge against its crediting account value. The roll-up only matters if you actually activate income — if you surrender or annuitize differently, you've paid for a benefit you never used.

This annuity is built for long-term money, not short-term cash. After the first year you can take up to 10% of the vested account value penalty-free each contract year, which is standard for the category and useful for supplementing income. Anything above that triggers a surrender charge that opens at a relatively steep 10% in year one and steps down to 0% after year seven. On top of the surrender charge, a market value adjustment (MVA) can apply — that means the penalty on a large early withdrawal can move up or down with interest rates, adding uncertainty beyond the published schedule. The spec flags the MVA as a low-confidence field, so confirm how it works in your state before relying on it. The bright spot is RMD treatment: required minimum distributions waive both the surrender charge and the MVA, and there are penalty-free withdrawal provisions for nursing home, terminal illness, and home health care, subject to state rules and waiting periods. Even so, the combination of a 10% opening charge and a vesting bonus you forfeit early means this is not a contract to buy if you might need the principal soon.

Prosperity Elite 7 has no explicit base-contract fee, but the costs add up once you start using features. The death-benefit packages carry their own charge — 0.60% of the highest guaranteed death benefit under the Enhancement Package, or 0.95% under the Protection Package. The income rider runs another 0.35% to 1.00% of the income base. And critically, any crediting strategy that carries a rider charge has a 1.25% annual charge deducted from its account value, which directly reduces credited interest. One index option, the Balanced Asset 5 Index, also has a 0.85% annual maintenance fee built into its methodology, so its returns are net of that cost before any crediting formula applies. The trade is straightforward to name: each fee buys a specific guarantee — a larger death benefit, a roll-up income base, a bigger bonus — and whether it's worth it depends entirely on whether you use that guarantee. Stack all of them and the drag is meaningful; skip them and you're in a cleaner but plainer version of the contract.

Legal Entity: Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company

Parent: FGL Holdings

A.M. Best Rating: A

F&G (Fidelity & Guaranty Life) is an established annuity carrier with an A rating from A.M. Best — a solid mid-tier grade that signals strong financial standing, though it sits a notch below the A+ and A++ carriers at the top of the scale. That's a reasonable backstop for a long-duration contract, but worth weighing against stronger-rated competitors if carrier strength is your priority.