SecureBuilder 7 (TD Bank) review

It depends on where you are. For a TD Bank client in one of the 13 eligible states who wants a no-fee accumulation FIA with principal protection, yes — it is a reasonable choice. The crediting menu is better than average for a bank-channel product, the MGSV is standard, and the Chronic Illness Waiver is a genuine differentiator. For anyone outside the TD Bank channel, it simply is not accessible, which makes the question moot.

The practical reason to buy SecureBuilder 7 is straightforward: you want a 7-year principal-protected annuity, you have a TD Bank relationship, and you want more crediting flexibility than a basic fixed annuity provides. The secondary reason is the Chronic Illness Waiver — if health concerns are a real factor, having surrender charges and MVA waived for home health care, nursing home, or terminal illness can matter a great deal. There is no income rider here, so buyers are focused on accumulation, not lifetime payouts.

I think SecureBuilder 7 is best for a TD Bank client in their 50s or 60s with a non-qualified or qualified account who wants a conservative accumulation vehicle with downside protection and no fee drag. It is not the right product for someone who expects to need income from the annuity within the surrender period, someone who is not a TD Bank client, or anyone outside the 13 available states. It also is not a good fit for someone who wants a simpler product — the crediting menu has eight options, and understanding the differences between a performance-triggered strategy and a participation-rate strategy takes some work.

You are not buying stock market exposure. You are buying an insurance contract that ties a portion of your interest credits to index performance while guaranteeing you cannot lose principal to market declines. The way it works: in any given contract year, the interest you earn is determined by one of several formulas applied to an index like the S&P 500 or the Balanced Asset 5 Index. If the index goes up, you earn some portion of that gain, subject to a cap or participation rate. If the index goes down, you earn nothing that year — but your principal is not reduced. That is the core exchange: you give up full market participation in exchange for a floor at zero.

SecureBuilder 7 offers eight crediting strategies. On the S&P 500, you can choose an annual point-to-point with a cap, an annual point-to-point with a participation rate, a biennial (two-year) term end point with a cap, or an annual performance-triggered option. The Balanced Asset 5 Index — a risk-controlled, multi-asset index — offers an annual point-to-point with participation rate, a biennial point-to-point with participation rate, and an annual performance-triggered option. There is also a fixed account currently paying 4.25%, guaranteed never to fall below 1.00%.

The biennial strategies are worth understanding: instead of resetting annually, they measure index performance over a full two-year period before crediting interest. That means you are taking a longer measurement window in exchange for potentially higher caps or participation rates. Whether that trade works out depends entirely on what the index does over those two years — it is not automatically better or worse than an annual reset. The performance-triggered strategies credit a preset rate as long as the index is flat or positive; they credit nothing in a negative year. The fixed account gives you certainty: 4.25% regardless of what markets do, as of the April 2026 rate sheet.

The Chronic Illness Waiver is the secondary feature that most distinguishes SecureBuilder 7 within the bank-channel FIA space. If you become chronically ill and need home health care or nursing home care, the contract waives surrender charges and the MVA on withdrawals you take for that purpose. Terminal illness triggers the same waiver. There is no additional cost for this feature — it is built into the base contract. For a buyer in their 60s or older, that is meaningful. A 7-year surrender schedule is a real commitment, and knowing there is an exit ramp for health emergencies reduces one of the main objections to locking money up for that long.

SecureBuilder 7 is a 7-year commitment. The surrender charge starts at 9% in year one and steps down to 3% in year seven, then drops to zero. On top of the surrender charge, a Market Value Adjustment — MVA — also applies to withdrawals that exceed the free amount during the surrender period. An MVA means your actual surrender penalty can be higher or lower than the schedule depending on where interest rates are when you withdraw. In a rising rate environment, the MVA typically makes withdrawals more expensive than the schedule alone suggests.

The free-withdrawal provision gives you 10% of account value per year after year one without triggering surrender charges or the MVA. For required minimum distributions, there is a specific waiver: if your RMD exceeds the free 10%, the excess is not subject to surrender charges or MVA. That makes this contract serviceable for qualified money in distribution, which is useful since the issue age goes up to 85 for qualified accounts.

There is no explicit annual base contract fee and no income rider fee, because there is no income rider. The cost of the crediting structure is implicit: caps and participation rates are set by F&G based on the cost of the options they buy to deliver index-linked interest. When rates are lower or markets are more volatile, caps tend to compress. That is not a visible fee, but it is the real economic tradeoff in any FIA.

The Balanced Asset 5 Index, like most risk-controlled proprietary indices, includes embedded index costs that reduce the effective participation in underlying asset moves. Those costs are not separately disclosed as fees — they are built into how the index is calculated. It is worth understanding that a 100% participation rate on a risk-controlled index is not the same as a 100% participation rate on the S&P 500, because the index itself is constructed to limit volatility, which also limits raw return.

Legal Entity: Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company

Parent: FGL Holdings

A.M. Best Rating: A

F&G is a mid-sized life insurer that has built a substantial annuity business over the past two decades. The A rating from A.M. Best reflects adequate financial strength. This is not a top-tier carrier in terms of size, but it is not a fringe player either — it has distributed millions of dollars in annuities across multiple product lines and distribution channels.