ForeIncome II 10-Year with Guaranteed Income Builder review

Yes, for the right buyer. This is a good annuity for someone who wants protected lifetime income, can leave the money alone for several years before turning income on, and values having the income engine built into the contract instead of relying on annuitization later. It is less appealing for someone who mainly wants accumulation, expects to need regular access to principal above the free amount, or is uncomfortable paying a rider fee on a benefit they may not use for a decade.

The main reason to buy ForeIncome II is to lock in a future stream of guaranteed lifetime income while keeping the principal protected from market losses along the way. The 10% annual credit to the income base means the longer you wait to turn income on, the larger your guaranteed withdrawal amount becomes, and that credit is contractual rather than dependent on how the indices perform. A second reason is the chronic illness enhancement, which can increase income if you later qualify under the rider terms, giving the contract a care-planning dimension that many income annuities charge extra for.

I think this annuity is best for someone roughly 55 to 70 who is using long-term money to manufacture a retirement paycheck, expects to defer withdrawals for at least several years, and wants the certainty of a guaranteed income figure they can plan around. It works well in both qualified and non-qualified accounts, and the wide 45-85 issue-age band leaves room for both pre-retirees and people already in retirement. It is a poor fit for someone who wants the strongest possible accumulation, needs liquidity above the 10% free amount, or is the type of buyer who would rather not pay an annual fee for a guarantee they might never activate.

You are not buying stock market upside, and you are not really buying the index-crediting menu either. You are buying a guaranteed income framework wrapped around a principal-protected annuity. The contract actually tracks two different numbers. One is your real account value, which is what you can walk away with or pass to heirs, and which grows based on the index crediting. The other is the withdrawal base, an accounting figure used only to calculate your guaranteed income, which grows by the 10% annual credit. That second number is bigger and grows faster, but it is not cash you can withdraw in a lump sum. It exists to determine how large your lifetime income payments can be once you activate them.

The Guaranteed Income Builder is the headline feature and it is included automatically. While you defer, the rider applies a 10% annual credit to your withdrawal base each contract year, and that credit continues for up to 15 years or until you turn income on, whichever comes first. So a buyer who funds the contract and waits the full deferral window builds a substantially larger income base than the premium they paid in. When you activate income, your age at activation and the withdrawal base together determine the guaranteed annual withdrawal amount you can take for life, and those payments continue even if the underlying account value is eventually drawn down to zero. The spec describes the 10% credit as an annual deferral bonus, and based on the materials this reads as a simple roll-up on the base rather than compounding growth, so confirm the exact crediting mechanics on the current rate sheet before you model specific income figures.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the Income Enhancement Benefit, a chronic illness rider that is included at no separate charge. If you later cannot perform a set number of daily living activities, the rider can increase your income payout under its terms, which turns the contract into a partial backstop for care costs without a standalone long-term-care policy. That matters because chronic illness is one of the largest unplanned expenses in retirement, and getting an enhancement bundled in rather than paying extra for it improves the value of the package.

The crediting menu is the other notable feature. The contract offers a broad set of options across the S&P 500, several volatility-controlled indices like the S&P 500 Engle 12% VT and Nasdaq-100 Agile 15%, and multi-asset indices from JP Morgan and PIMCO, including both annual point-to-point and biennial term-end methods. The annual methods carried caps in the 5.00% to 7.50% range with a 1.00% spread on selected indices as of the brochure date, and the structured options use a 20% performance-triggered design. These are not headline-grabbing growth terms, and they will change over time, so the menu is best understood as a way to give the protected account value a modest tailwind rather than a growth engine.

This annuity is built for long-term retirement dollars, not short-term cash needs. You can withdraw up to 10% each year without penalty, calculated on premiums paid in year one and on account value thereafter. Anything above that during the surrender period is subject to the declining charge schedule below, plus a Market Value Adjustment, which means your surrender penalty also moves with interest rates and can add to or subtract from the charge depending on where rates have gone since you bought the contract.

There are some genuine relief features. The spec flags the contract as RMD-friendly, though that field is low-confidence in the source materials, so if you are using qualified money confirm how required minimum distributions are handled relative to the free-withdrawal amount before relying on it. Nursing home and terminal illness waivers can waive surrender charges in qualifying situations. There is also a bailout provision worth knowing about: if the credited rate renews below a stated bailout rate, you can surrender penalty-free, which is a useful safety valve if the carrier's renewal terms deteriorate. Even with these provisions, this is not a contract to treat as emergency cash.

The fee that matters is the 1.20% annual charge on the withdrawal base for the Guaranteed Income Builder. That charge is deducted from your real account value every year, and because it is calculated on the larger withdrawal base rather than the account value, the dollar cost grows as the income base climbs. There is no separate base-contract fee disclosed, and the death benefit and chronic illness enhancement are included rather than charged separately, so the rider fee is effectively the whole fee story.

Name the trade plainly: that 1.20% buys you a guaranteed 10% annual increase to your future income base for up to 15 years and a lifetime payout that does not stop even if the account runs dry. Whether that is worth it depends almost entirely on whether you actually turn income on. If you defer, activate, and live a long time, the guarantee can be very valuable. If you end up surrendering the contract or never activating income, you will have paid the fee for a benefit you did not use, and the conservative index crediting will have left your account value lighter than a pure accumulation FIA would have. The structural tradeoff is the same one every income-first FIA carries: the growth side is muted on purpose so the carrier can fund the guarantee.

Legal Entity: Forethought Life Insurance Company

Parent: Global Atlantic Financial Group

A.M. Best Rating: A

ForeIncome II is issued by Forethought Life Insurance Company, part of Global Atlantic Financial Group. The A.M. Best rating of A places the carrier in solid financial-strength territory, which matters more than usual for an income product, since the lifetime payout guarantee is only as good as the insurer standing behind it over a multi-decade horizon.