Retirement Investment Annuity review

It depends on the channel and the client. For someone working with a fee-based or fee-only advisor who wants tax-deferred investing without surrender handcuffs and without a sales commission baked in, this is a good contract. For a do-it-yourself buyer looking for guaranteed income or principal protection, it is the wrong tool — a variable annuity with no living benefit is hard to justify against a fixed indexed annuity or a guaranteed-income product.

The main reason to use this contract is tax-deferred growth inside a low-cost insurance wrapper that an advisor can manage actively. Because there are no surrender charges, the advisor can rebalance, reallocate, or even exit the contract without trapping the client in a penalty schedule — a meaningful difference from traditional commission-based variable annuities that lock money up for years. The secondary reason is the breadth of the subaccount lineup, which gives an advisor a wide field to build a diversified, risk-appropriate portfolio with tax deferral on top.

I think this is best for someone with a fee-based or fee-only advisor, in or near retirement, who has already used up other tax-advantaged accounts and wants additional tax-deferred space for invested (not guaranteed) money. The $50,000 minimum and advisory structure point toward clients with meaningful assets and an active management relationship. It is much less appropriate for a self-directed buyer, for anyone who wants the safety of principal protection, or for someone whose primary goal is locked-in lifetime income — those buyers should look at fixed, fixed indexed, or income-focused products instead.

You are not buying a guarantee. You are buying a tax-deferred investment account with a thin layer of insurance charges on top, packaged in a way that fits inside an advisory fee arrangement. The "variable" in variable annuity is literal: your account value rises and falls with the subaccounts you choose, and there is no floor unless you add an optional rider. What makes this version different from a typical retail variable annuity is that it strips out the commission-driven surrender period and keeps the base insurance cost low, which is why it is sold through registered investment advisors rather than for a one-time commission.

The core of the contract is the investment platform. You allocate premium across up to 104 variable subaccounts — covering a wide range of asset classes and managers — plus one fixed account. The subaccounts carry their own internal fund expenses, which the materials put at roughly 0.09% to 2.00% depending on the fund, so the all-in cost depends heavily on what you actually invest in. On top of the fund expenses, Jackson assesses a core contract charge (mortality and expense risk) of 0.40% per year, dropping to 0.35% for accounts whose quarterly anniversary values reach $1,000,000 or more. That M&E charge is assessed only on the variable subaccounts, not on money sitting in the fixed account. The fixed account itself carries a guaranteed minimum rate that the materials describe as ranging from 1.00% to 3.00% tied to the 5-year Constant Maturity Treasury rate, with a current guaranteed minimum of 2.40% as of the brochure date — though as with any rate, that figure is a snapshot and can move.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the optional guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit, Jackson +Protect II. This is what turns the contract from a pure investment account into something that can also provide guaranteed lifetime income, but it is genuinely optional and you pay for it. The rider charges 0.35% during the deferral period and 0.80% once income begins (current rates, with a 1.50% maximum), assessed quarterly on the benefit base. Notably, there is no roll-up — the benefit base does not grow at a guaranteed annual rate while you wait. Instead, it steps up every five years if the account value is higher at that point. That is a weaker accumulation feature than the annual roll-ups you see on many income-focused annuities, so anyone adding this rider should understand they are paying mainly for the lifetime payout guarantee, not for guaranteed base growth.

Liquidity is the structural high point of this contract. There is no surrender charge schedule at all and no market value adjustment, so every withdrawal is penalty-free from day one. For an advisor managing the account, that means full flexibility to reallocate or exit without trapping the client. The one practical limit is that the contract terminates if the value falls below $2,000 after a withdrawal (when no guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit rider is in place), so it cannot be drained to near-zero and kept open. There is also a $35 annual contract maintenance charge, but it is waived once the contract anniversary or surrender value reaches $50,000 — which, given the $50,000 minimum premium, most contracts should clear. The materials indicate the contract is RMD-friendly, so required minimum distributions can be taken without penalty, consistent with the no-surrender-charge design.

The fee story here is unusually clean for a variable annuity, which is the main reason the contract earns its rating. The base insurance charge is 0.40% a year (0.35% above $1 million), there is no separate product fee, no 12b-1 fees, and a 0.00% administration charge. On top of that you pay the internal expenses of whatever subaccounts you choose — anywhere from 0.09% to 2.00% — plus the small $35 maintenance fee if your contract is below the waiver threshold. Transfers are free for the first 25 per year, then $25 each. If you add the optional riders, you layer on their costs: 0.35%/0.80% for the +Protect II lifetime income rider and 0.20% (max 0.40%) for the Return of Premium Death Benefit III. The trade to understand is simple — the low base cost is real, but every guarantee you want costs extra, and without any rider this is an investment account that can lose money. Whether the wrapper is worth it depends on whether the tax deferral and the advisor's management justify the insurance charge over a plain taxable brokerage account.

Legal Entity: Jackson National Life Insurance Company

Parent: Jackson National Group

AM Best Rating: A