Secure Horizon review

It depends on your time horizon. For someone who genuinely will not need this money for 10 years and wants an accumulation-focused FIA with a wide range of index strategies, Secure Horizon is a reasonable choice from a highly rated carrier. For someone who needs regular access above 7% annually, might need to surrender early, or wants lifetime income built in, this is not the right product.

The rational case for Secure Horizon is principal protection with a broader-than-average selection of crediting methods. Six underlying benchmarks — including the S&P 500 Distance Stabilizer, PRISM, Loomis Sayles Managed Futures, NYSE GEARS, and Research Affiliates Global Multi-Asset — let buyers diversify how they pursue interest credits across different market environments. Buyers who want that kind of coverage in a single contract from a carrier rated A+ by A.M. Best have relatively few alternatives in this duration band.

I think Secure Horizon fits best for buyers in roughly the 50-65 age range who have a defined chunk of retirement assets they won't need for a decade, already have liquidity elsewhere, and want principal protection while giving those assets a chance to grow beyond a plain fixed rate. This product is better suited to non-qualified money or IRA rollovers where the 10-year horizon is realistic. It is not the right fit for someone whose primary goal is turning on guaranteed income — that buyer should focus on an income-rider FIA instead.

You are buying a principal protection contract, not a market investment. Your premium is safe from direct index losses — if the S&P 500 falls in a given crediting year, you earn zero on that strategy, not a negative return. In exchange for that floor, your upside is capped or participation-rate limited depending on which strategy you select. The six-index menu is genuinely broader than what most accumulation FIAs offer, but each index strategy imposes its own ceiling on what you can earn, and some of the managed and multi-asset indices carry embedded costs inside the index construction that reduce how much of the benchmark's return flows through to credited interest. That's a structural fact to understand before choosing a strategy, not a reason to avoid it.

Secure Horizon offers five index-linked crediting strategies plus a fixed rate option. The annual point-to-point methods — both the cap-rate version and the participation-rate version — reset every year based on where the index ends relative to where it started. The two-year point-to-point with participation rate uses a 24-month measurement window instead, which can smooth out annual volatility but extends how long you wait to see a credit. The Performance Strategy Ladder is a structured crediting method; the specifics vary by index, but generally involves tiered credit triggers rather than a pure percentage of index gain.

The S&P 500 Distance Stabilizer, S&P PRISM, Loomis Sayles Managed Futures 2, NYSE GEARS, and Research Affiliates Global Multi-Asset indices are all purpose-built or licensed benchmarks designed to produce more stable returns than standard equity indices. They often run lower volatility — which can mean lower headline returns in strong equity years, but also more consistent positive credits in mixed markets. Participation rates and caps quoted in the brochure ranged from 60% to 220% on participation and 6% to 15% on caps as of the March 2026 rate sheet, though these are subject to change at contract renewal periods.

The nursing home waiver is the most important secondary feature. If you're confined to a qualified nursing facility for a required duration, North American can waive surrender charges — allowing access to the contract value in a scenario where early access would otherwise cost you real money. In a 10-year contract, that provision meaningfully reduces the risk profile for buyers who are in their 60s or 70s at issue and face a realistic possibility of needing care during the surrender period. The waiver is not available in California, so CA residents should factor that limitation into their evaluation.

The surrender schedule is steep and long. Years one through five all carry a 10% charge, dropping gradually to 4% in year 10 and zero after. A market value adjustment (MVA) also applies — meaning your effective penalty can be larger or smaller than the schedule shows depending on how interest rates have moved since you bought the contract. In a rising-rate environment, the MVA can add to your cost; in a falling-rate environment, it may reduce it.

The 7% free withdrawal provision (starting year 2) provides some relief. RMDs that exceed the free withdrawal amount solely due to this contract are exempt from surrender charges and MVA, which is a meaningful concession for qualified money. Even so, anyone considering this product should treat it as a 10-year commitment and plan liquidity accordingly.

There is no stated base contract fee, which is a plus. The main implicit cost is the spread — a 0.95% annual spread applies to certain strategies, meaning the credited interest is reduced by that amount before it hits your account value. On strategies where participation rates are high, a 0.95% spread still leaves meaningful upside potential. On lower-cap strategies, it's worth calculating whether the net return justifies the 10-year commitment.

Some of the enhanced crediting methods carry an optional Strategy Charge that can further reduce what gets credited in exchange for higher stated rates or participation percentages. That's an internal cost embedded in the strategy design rather than a line-item fee — it's worth asking for the full rate sheet to understand what you're net of all charges on each strategy before selecting an allocation.

Legal Entity: North American Company for Life and Health Insurance

Parent: Sammons Financial Group

A.M. Best Rating: A+