Heritage Premier Plus 9 review

Depends on the buyer. For someone with a genuine nine-year time horizon who doesn't need meaningful liquidity, this is a reasonably competitive, low-drama fixed annuity from a solidly rated carrier. For someone drawn in specifically by the "Plus" first-year bump, I don't think the math justifies paying it much attention — over the full nine years, it barely separates the contract from its own plain sibling. And nine years without a percentage-of-value free withdrawal is a real commitment; buyers should be honest about whether they can go that long without touching principal.

The rational reason to buy this is the rate lock itself: 5.35% for nine years from an A- rated carrier, with no annual contract fee, no M&E charge, and no administration charge disclosed anywhere in the available materials. The year-one 1.00% Interest Rate Bonus is a secondary sweetener rather than the main event — it lifts the effective first-year rate to 6.35% but reverts to the base rate afterward. Someone choosing a nine-year MYGA over a shorter one is typically doing it to lock out reinvestment risk for a full decade, and is comfortable trading liquidity for that certainty.

This fits retirement savers, roughly late-50s through mid-70s, moving qualified or non-qualified money out of a maturing CD, bond ladder, or another MYGA, who want a full nine years of rate certainty and don't plan to touch principal. Because free withdrawals are limited to interest only rather than a percentage of account value, it's a poor match for anyone who might need a lump-sum draw in years one through eight outside of the Health Waiver Benefits carve-outs (nursing home, terminal illness, disability, or home health care).

You're not buying a growth vehicle — you're buying a single-premium, fixed-rate insurance contract that locks in 5.35% annual interest for nine years, with a one-time 1.00% Interest Rate Bonus credited in year one only (bringing the effective first-year rate to 6.35%). After that first year, the rate reverts to the 5.35% base for years two through nine. It's a guarantee, not a market strategy — no caps, no participation rates, none of an FIA's index-crediting complexity. The appeal is knowing exactly what you'll earn for the entire term.

The core mechanic is a declared fixed rate: Liberty Bankers Life guarantees 5.35% for the full nine-year term as of the current rate sheet, and new-issue rates can change at any time. On top of that, the contract adds a 1.00% Interest Rate Bonus credited only in the first contract year. Both the Wink product profile and the carrier's own FA Portfolio Quick Reference describe this explicitly as an interest rate bonus, not a premium bonus — meaning it changes the crediting rate for one year rather than adding money to the account value at issue. That distinction matters: a premium bonus increases principal immediately and compounds for the full term, while an interest rate bonus disappears after year one and leaves nothing behind to compound.

The Health Waiver Benefits are the more meaningful secondary feature here. The contract waives surrender charges for nursing home confinement, terminal illness diagnosis, disability, or home health care needs — up to 10% of accumulated value in the first year, and up to 50% from year two on. That's a real liquidity backstop for the scenarios that most often force early annuity surrenders, and the available materials don't disclose any additional cost for it. Given how restrictive the standard free-withdrawal provision is, this waiver does more practical work here than it would on a MYGA that already offers a generous percentage-of-value withdrawal.

Nine years is a long commitment, and the free-withdrawal provision here is narrower than what many MYGA buyers expect. Systematic withdrawals of interest only are available after the contract has been in force 30 days, subject to a $100 minimum — there's no stated percentage-of-account-value free withdrawal, a feature many competing MYGAs offer that lets buyers pull roughly 10% annually without penalty. Above the interest-only amount, the surrender schedule below applies, and a market value adjustment (MVA — an adjustment that can raise or lower your surrender value depending on how interest rates have moved since issue) layers on top of those charges for the entire nine-year term. I'd treat this as money that's locked for nearly a decade, aside from the health-triggered waivers described above, and it's worth weighing that seriously against shorter MYGAs before committing.

There's no base contract fee disclosed anywhere in the materials — no M&E charge, no administration fee, no annual contract charge. That's standard for a MYGA and a real advantage relative to fee-bearing FIA or VA products. The actual cost of this contract isn't a stated fee; it's the MVA and the interest-only free-withdrawal limit, both of which can penalize an early exit more than a shorter-surrender MYGA would. The 1.00% year-one Interest Rate Bonus doesn't cost anything explicitly, but it's funded in part by a base rate that's ten basis points lower than the plain Heritage Premier 9's flat 5.45%, plus a marginally steeper surrender schedule (8.2% vs. 8.1% in year one, for example). Run to maturity on $100,000, the two versions land within roughly 0.15 percentage points of cumulative return of each other — the "Plus" branding front-loads a small amount of yield rather than adding real long-term value.

Legal Entity: Liberty Bankers Life Insurance Company

Parent: Liberty Bankers Insurance Group

A.M. Best Rating: A-