ForeStructured Growth II Advisory review

It depends on how you're paying for advice and how much market risk you're willing to carry. For someone in a fee-based advisory relationship who wants index-linked growth with a defined buffer, this is a good annuity, and the advisory pricing genuinely works in the buyer's favor through higher crediting terms and a lighter surrender schedule. It is the wrong product for someone who wants guaranteed principal protection, because a RILA is designed to take losses below your protection level, not eliminate them.

The main reason to buy the advisory version is that you're already working with a fee-only or fee-based advisor and want a structured product that fits that arrangement instead of paying a commission baked into the contract. Because no commission is embedded, RILAs in advisory share classes generally offer better caps and participation rates than their commission counterparts, so the same buffer can buy you more upside. On top of that, the advisory fee you pay your planner, up to 1.50% per year, can be pulled out of the contract without triggering a surrender charge or market value adjustment, which keeps the fee-based plumbing clean. For an accumulation-minded buyer who wants more upside than a fixed indexed annuity allows and is comfortable with measured downside, that combination is the appeal.

I think this is best for a buyer roughly in their 50s or 60s, with a multi-year horizon, who is comfortable with the idea that this account can lose money in a bad year and who is paying an advisor a planning fee rather than buying through a commissioned agent. It fits non-qualified money or qualified rollover dollars where the buffer is intended to smooth, not erase, market drops. It is a poor fit for someone who wants principal guarantees, someone who needs steady access to the money, or anyone who would rather buy a one-decision product than manage a multi-strategy structured allocation.

You are not buying a fixed annuity, and you are not buying the index directly. You are buying a contract that links your return to an index, gives back some of the downside protection through a buffer or floor, and limits or scales your upside through caps and participation rates in exchange. A buffer means Forethought absorbs losses up to a set percentage (the menu runs from 0% up to 25%) and you take anything beyond it. A floor works the other way, capping your maximum loss at a set level while you absorb the first portion. The "advisory" label means this specific share class is sold without a commission and priced for fee-based accounts, which is why the surrender terms are lighter and the crediting terms tend to be more generous than the commission version. What you're really buying is a defined-outcome bet: you trade uncapped market upside and full principal safety for a known, bounded risk-return profile that you and your advisor design.

The core feature is the structured crediting engine, and it is unusually deep. The spec lists 53 structured strategies built on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, spanning Annual Point-to-Point, Term End Point, Tiered Participation, Dual Performance, and Dual Direction with Performance Threshold designs. In plain terms, you pick a term (typically one to several years), an index, a protection level (a buffer from 0% to 25%, or a floor), and a crediting style, and at the end of the term the contract calculates your credit based on index performance, your cap or participation rate, and your protection. Forethought publishes participation rates from roughly 80% to 105% and caps from roughly 7.50% to 28.00% depending on the strategy, though those specific numbers are flagged as medium-confidence in the source materials and the live rate sheet is what governs an actual contract. Dual Direction strategies can credit a positive return even when the index is modestly down, and the contract includes a lock-in feature, a daily adjustment option, and aggregate floor options for buyers who want to fine-tune the structure. There is also a fixed account currently crediting 4.25% for money you want to sit out of the index entirely.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the advisory share structure itself, because it changes the economics in ways that matter. The flat 2% surrender charge for six years is a fraction of the commission version's 8/8/7/6/5/4 schedule, so your money is far less locked in. Advisory fees up to 1.50% per year come out without surrender or MVA penalty, which means the wrapper doesn't fight the fee-based billing your advisor runs. And because there's no commission to recover, the carrier can afford to publish higher caps and participation. None of this is free, but it does mean the advisory class is structurally more buyer-friendly than the commission version for someone who is already paying for advice. An optional Return of Premium death benefit (priced from 0.20% to 0.50% annually, 0.50% at ages 71 and up) is also available for buyers who want to guarantee heirs at least the premiums paid.

This is the area where the advisory class clearly separates from the commission version. The surrender charge is a flat 2% in years one through six, dropping to 0% in year seven, which is light for a RILA and reflects the no-commission pricing. In year one you can withdraw up to 10% of premiums paid; in years two and beyond you can take up to 10% of the previous anniversary's account value plus any amount sitting in the Performance Credit Account, as long as you leave at least $2,500 in the contract. Importantly, advisory-fee withdrawals up to 1.50% through the Forethought program are not assessed surrender charges or a market value adjustment, so the advisor's fee doesn't erode your free-withdrawal budget. A market value adjustment does apply to other surrender-charge-eligible withdrawals, which means the penalty on early money can move up or down with interest rates, and there are specific restrictions on the Daily Adjustment strategy. Even with the lighter schedule, this is still a multi-year commitment built for money you don't expect to need in full during the term.

The advisory share class carries no mortality and expense charge, no separate product fee, no administration charge, and no annual contract fee, which is consistent with a fee-based RILA design. The only explicit internal cost is the optional Return of Premium death benefit at 0.20% to 0.50% per year (0.50% for ages 71 and up); if you don't elect it, the contract simply passes the full account value to beneficiaries at no charge. The fee you will actually feel is the advisory fee your planner charges, which is external to the product but can be drawn from it without penalty up to 1.50%. The bigger tradeoff is not a fee at all, it's the structure: your upside is bounded by caps and participation rates, and your downside is bounded only to the level of the buffer or floor you choose. Below that level, the losses are yours. The published cap and participation ranges are medium-confidence in the source materials, so the live rate sheet should be reviewed before any allocation, since the credited result depends entirely on those terms.

Legal Entity: Forethought Life Insurance Company

Parent: Global Atlantic Financial Group

A.M. Best Rating: A