Pinnacle V review

Depends on what you want. It is a good annuity for someone who specifically wants tax-deferred market growth inside an insurance wrapper, values a deep fund menu, and may want to add a lifetime income guarantee down the road. It is a poor fit for someone who wants principal protection, low fees, or a simple guaranteed rate — because unlike a fixed or fixed-indexed annuity, the base account value here can lose money when the markets fall.

The main reason to buy Pinnacle V is tax-deferred market participation with the option to layer on income protection. Someone who has already maxed out other tax-advantaged accounts and wants more tax-deferred growth, but prefers to keep the door open to a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit, is the natural buyer. The secondary reason is flexibility: with 60 sub-accounts, three fixed Guaranteed Rate Options, and systematic transfer features, you can build a fairly customized allocation inside one contract. The enhanced death benefit option also appeals to buyers who want to pass account growth to heirs.

I think Pinnacle V is best for a buyer in the pre-retirement window, comfortable with market risk, who has long-term dollars to commit and wants equity-style growth with a tax-deferral wrapper and an optional income safety net. It works in both qualified and non-qualified money, though the tax deferral is most valuable for non-qualified savings since an IRA is already tax-deferred. It is not a good fit for conservative buyers who can't tolerate the account value dropping, for anyone fee-sensitive, or for someone who mainly wants guaranteed income now — a SPIA or built-in income FIA would serve that goal more directly and cheaply.

You are buying market risk, not principal protection. This is the key distinction. Most annuities reviewed on this site protect your principal from market loss; a variable annuity does not. Your money goes into sub-accounts that behave like mutual funds, and the account value rises and falls with those investments. What the annuity adds is tax deferral, a death benefit floor, and the option to purchase a living benefit rider that guarantees lifetime withdrawals regardless of how the investments perform. So you are really buying a tax-deferred investment platform with optional insurance bolted on — and you pay for that platform through the M&E charge whether or not you ever use the optional guarantees.

The core of Pinnacle V is its investment menu. You allocate premium across up to 60 variable sub-accounts spanning different asset classes, with net subaccount expense ratios running from 0.25% to as high as 3.29% depending on the fund — that is a wide range, and the high end is steep, so fund selection matters a lot here. Alongside the variable options sit three fixed Guaranteed Rate Options (GROs) with 5-, 7-, and 10-year terms. As of the May 1, 2026 rate snapshot, those credited 3.60% (5-year), 3.30% (7-year), and 3.40% (10-year); those rates reset on new money and are not permanent. A Systematic Transfer Option lets you dollar-cost-average from the fixed account into the sub-accounts over 6 or 12 months. You get 12 free transfers per year before a $20 transfer fee applies. In plain English: this is a flexible investment chassis, and most of your return — good or bad — comes from how the sub-accounts perform, not from any guarantee.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the optional income rider, which is what separates this from a bare brokerage account. You can choose Guaranteed Lifetime Income Advantage (GLIA) Individual Rider II or the richer GLIA Plus II. These riders build a separate "benefit base" that grows by a guaranteed roll-up during a 10-year accumulation period, then defines a lifetime withdrawal you can take even if the actual account value runs dry. The GLIA roll-up is age-banded simple interest — 3.75% for younger owners scaling up to 6.25% at age 80+ — while GLIA Plus II uses a flat 6.00% simple roll-up over the same 10-year window. Important: these riders are optional and cost extra (more on that below), and the roll-up applies to the benefit base used to calculate income, not to your actual account value. If you never turn income on, you have paid for a guarantee you didn't use.

This is a 7-year commitment with a declining withdrawal charge starting at 8%. Each contract year you can take 10% of account value (noncumulative — it does not carry over if unused) free of withdrawal charge or market value adjustment. A Market Value Adjustment (MVA) applies to amounts above the free withdrawal during the surrender period — that means your surrender cost can move up or down with interest rates, adding uncertainty on top of the stated charge. The minimum withdrawal is $300, reduced to $100 under the free systematic withdrawal program. RMDs are accommodated, and withdrawal charges and MVA may be waived for required minimum distributions and certain hardships — unemployment, terminal illness, and medical or long-term care — though those waivers vary by state (the unemployment provision in particular is excluded in several states, and the hardship waiver is unavailable in South Dakota). Treat this as long-term money, not an emergency fund.

This is where Pinnacle V demands attention, because the fees stack. The base contract carries a 1.55% annual mortality and expense (M&E) charge — the cost of the wrapper and standard death benefit — which does not apply to the fixed accounts. On top of that, each sub-account carries its own net expense ratio of 0.25% to 3.29%, so a poorly chosen fund could cost you over 4% a year combined before any rider. The optional income rider adds 1.25% (individual) to 1.55% (spousal) of the benefit base for GLIA, or 1.60% for GLIA Plus II, with both capped at 2.00%. The optional Enhanced Earnings death benefit adds 0.20% to 0.50% of account value depending on issue age. There is also a $30 annual administrative charge, waived once your account value reaches $50,000. Name the trade plainly: you can run this contract relatively lean by choosing low-cost funds and skipping the riders, or you can load it up with guarantees and pay 4%+ all-in. The income rider fee buys a guaranteed roll-up and lifetime withdrawal — worth it only if you actually activate income; otherwise it is pure drag.