Investment Solutions RIA review

It depends entirely on whether you have run out of cheaper tax-deferred space. For a fee-based advisory client who has already maxed out qualified accounts and wants more tax-deferred room inside a managed portfolio, this is a reasonable, low-cost way to do it. For most other buyers it is hard to justify, because a taxable brokerage account or an indexed annuity will usually serve the same goal with less complexity and cost.

The main reason to buy Investment Solutions RIA is tax-deferred market exposure that an advisor can manage the same way they manage the rest of a portfolio, without a commission or surrender period getting in the way. The secondary reason is the absence of a surrender schedule, which means the money is not handcuffed for several years the way it would be in a commission-based variable annuity. In practice, this is the type of contract an advisor reaches for when a client has more to invest than their 401(k) and IRA can hold and the client specifically wants the tax deferral a brokerage account cannot provide.

I think this is best for an affluent, fee-based advisory client, typically in their 40s through 60s, who has already filled cheaper tax-advantaged accounts and is using non-qualified dollars for long-term, growth-oriented investing. Because most of the value here is tax deferral, it adds little inside an IRA or other already-tax-sheltered account, so non-qualified money is the natural fit. It is a poor fit for someone who needs the money in the near term, someone in a low tax bracket who would not benefit much from deferral, or someone who simply wants guaranteed income and would be better served by a dedicated income annuity.

You are not buying a guarantee. You are buying a tax-deferred container that holds professionally managed mutual fund subaccounts, with the carrier's insurance charges layered on top. The investment risk sits with you, just as it would in a brokerage account, because your account value rises and falls with the subaccounts you choose. What you are paying the insurance company for is the tax deferral, the optional guarantees if you elect them, and the death-benefit floor. Stripping away the brochure framing, this is a low-cost insurance wrapper around ordinary fund investing, designed so a fee-only advisor can use it without earning a commission.

The core of the contract is the subaccount lineup. There are 112 variable subaccounts spanning major fund families including American Century, BlackRock, Franklin, JP Morgan, and Vanguard, with net fund expense ratios reported between 0.23% and 1.25%. You and your advisor allocate premium across those subaccounts and can move between them, with up to 12 free transfers per year, so the portfolio can be rebalanced without a separate transaction cost. There are also fixed account options for the portion of the portfolio you want shielded from market movement. The headline is flexibility: this behaves much like a managed brokerage account, except returns compound tax-deferred and the underlying fund cost depends heavily on which subaccounts you pick, since a Vanguard-style index sleeve at 0.23% is a very different cost than an active fund near 1.25%.

The most meaningful secondary feature is the optional Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit, marketed under the Lincoln ProtectedPay and iLIFE rider names. This is an add-on, not a built-in income engine, so the base contract is purely an accumulation vehicle until you choose to attach it. When elected, select riders apply a 6.00% simple-interest roll-up to the benefit base during an initial 10-year period, which raises the value used to calculate guaranteed lifetime withdrawals even if the market does not cooperate. That can be valuable for a client who wants a future income floor, but it is a meaningful cost decision rather than a free feature, and because it is optional, this product should not be thought of as an income annuity by default.

This is where the RIA structure genuinely shines. There is no surrender period and no market value adjustment, so your account value is accessible without a back-end penalty schedule the way it would be in a commission-based variable annuity. The 12 free transfers per year refer to moving money among subaccounts, not to withdrawing it, but the absence of surrender charges means the contract is far more liquid than a typical VA. Two normal annuity caveats still apply: withdrawals of gains before age 59 1/2 can face a 10% IRS penalty on top of ordinary income tax, and the spec indicates this product is RMD-friendly, so required minimum distributions can be taken without a contract-level surrender obstacle. As always, the tax treatment of any withdrawal is separate from the contract's own liquidity terms.

The base cost is the good news. The mortality and expense charge is 0.40% assessed daily, the administration charge is 0.10%, and there is a $50 annual contract fee that is waived once the account reaches $50,000, for a base contract cost of about 0.50% before fund expenses. On top of that you pay the net expense ratio of whatever subaccounts you select, anywhere from 0.23% to 1.25%, and your advisor's separate advisory fee. The tradeoff arrives with the optional riders. The GLWB carries a 1.50% to 2.75% annual charge depending on the rider and issue age, and the enhanced death-benefit options add roughly 0.25% to 0.45%. Stack a mid-range income rider onto the base and the all-in insurance cost can climb past 2.5% before fund fees, which erases the low-cost advantage that is the whole reason to consider this contract. The honest read is that the base wrapper is genuinely inexpensive, and every rider you add is a deliberate decision to pay for a guarantee.

Legal Entity: The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company

Parent: Lincoln Financial Group

A.M. Best Rating: A