Investor Advantage B-Share (NY) review

Depends on why you're buying it. It's a reasonable tax-deferral tool for someone who has already filled up their other tax-advantaged accounts and wants market exposure without an annual tax bill on gains. It is not a good fit if you're looking for the things people usually associate with annuities — guaranteed income for life, or principal protection from market losses — because this version offers neither.

The rational reason to buy this is tax deferral on non-qualified money. If you're a high earner who has maxed out your 401(k) and IRA, gains inside this contract aren't taxed each year the way they would be in a taxable brokerage account — they compound until you withdraw. The 5-year surrender period is shorter than most B-share variable annuities, so your money isn't locked up as long, and the broad subaccount menu lets you build a diversified portfolio inside the wrapper. The case rests entirely on whether tax deferral is worth the insurance cost.

This is best for a higher-income investor, typically 45 to 65, who has already exhausted qualified retirement accounts and wants additional tax-deferred space for long-term, non-qualified dollars they won't need for at least five years. It suits someone comfortable with market risk who specifically wants tax deferral, not guarantees. It's a poor fit for anyone using qualified money (an IRA is already tax-deferred, so the wrapper adds cost with no tax benefit), anyone who wants guaranteed lifetime income, or anyone who can't tolerate seeing their account value drop in a down market.

Strip away the annuity label and this is a tax-deferred investment account. You are not buying any guarantee on your principal, and on this New York version you are not buying an enhanced death benefit unless you elect the Guarantee of Principal option for an extra fee. What you're buying is the ability to invest across 144 mutual-fund-like subaccounts and defer taxes on the gains, in exchange for an insurance charge of about 0.95% per year on top of the underlying fund expenses. That's the whole trade: tax deferral and a death benefit, paid for with an annual fee that a plain brokerage account doesn't charge.

Your premium goes into subaccounts you select — there are 144 of them, spanning stock, bond, and allocation strategies, with net fund expenses ranging from 0.48% to 2.23% (averaging about 0.96% per the brochure). The account value moves with whatever those subaccounts do; there's no cap, no floor, and no index crediting formula, because this is a true variable annuity, not an indexed one. Lincoln also offers Dollar Cost Averaging fixed accounts that pay declared rates (the brochure lists 6.00% for three months, 3.00% for six months, and 3.00% for twelve months as of 5/1/2026) as a holding place while you move money into subaccounts gradually. There's also an "Earning Bonus" of 0.0250% per quarter added to the account value when the quarterly account value is at least $1,000,000 — a small perk for large balances, though the spec flags this detail as lower-confidence, so confirm it on the current contract.

The optional income piece is i4LIFE Advantage II, which costs 0.40% per year. This is not a GLWB-style guaranteed-lifetime-withdrawal rider that lets you take income while keeping access to your account value. It's an annuitization-based income option — a structured way to convert the contract into a stream of payments with some access to remaining value. It matters because it's the only income mechanism on this version, and it's optional, so you only pay for it if you elect it. Note that i4LIFE Advantage Pro is not available in New York, so New York buyers get a narrower set of i4LIFE choices than buyers in other states. Because income here is optional and annuitization-based rather than a built-in guaranteed-income rider, this is fundamentally an accumulation product, not an income product.

You can withdraw the greater of 10% of your current account value or 10% of premiums paid each year without a surrender charge. Beyond that, the surrender charge runs 7%, 6%, 5%, 4%, 3%, then drops to 0% in year six — a 5-year schedule that's shorter and gentler than the 7-year schedules common on B-share variable annuities. There's no market value adjustment, so your surrender penalty is a fixed percentage, not something that swings with interest rates. Two things to keep in mind: a penalty-free withdrawal still removes money from the markets, so you lose the future growth on what you take out, and required minimum distributions are generally accommodated, though as a variable contract your balance — and therefore your RMD — fluctuates with performance.

The base insurance cost is 0.95% per year — a 0.85% mortality and expense (M&E) charge assessed daily plus a 0.10% administrative charge — and that sits on top of the subaccount fund expenses (0.48% to 2.23%, averaging about 0.96%). So an all-in annual cost in the neighborhood of 1.9% is realistic depending on which funds you choose, before any optional riders. There's a $35 annual contract fee, waived once your account value reaches $100,000 or after 15 years, plus 12 free transfers a year at no charge. Optional features add more: i4LIFE Advantage II is 0.40%, the Guarantee of Principal death benefit is 0.25%, and the Earnings Optimizer death benefit (0.30% under age 70, 0.70% at ages 70-75) — but Earnings Optimizer is not available in New York, so New York buyers can't add the death-benefit enhancement that most justifies the wrapper. The honest trade: roughly 0.95% of base insurance cost buys you tax deferral and a standard account-value death benefit, and whether that beats a taxable brokerage account depends on your tax bracket and how long you hold.

Legal Entity: Lincoln Life & Annuity Company of New York

Parent: Lincoln Financial Group

AM Best Rating: A