Personal Choice Plus review

Depends. Personal Choice Plus is a reasonably built 5-year FIA with real principal protection and a workable menu of crediting strategies, but it isn't a standout. The lack of a standard free-withdrawal provision on the base contract is unusual for the category — most FIAs build in at least 10% penalty-free access — and the B rating from A.M. Best means this carrier is weaker on financial strength than many of its peers. I think it's a fair product for the right buyer, not a compelling one for most shoppers.

The rational case for Personal Choice Plus is the short commitment: 5 years is on the shorter end for an FIA, which matters to someone who doesn't want to lock money up for a decade. The 100% participation rate across the annual point-to-point, monthly averaging, and monthly point-to-point strategies also means you keep the full stated cap or the full monthly sum, rather than losing a slice to a participation-rate haircut. Add a guaranteed 3.00%, 5-year fixed account as a no-index-risk sleeve, and this becomes a straightforward, uncomplicated way to get some upside potential without market-loss risk.

This fits someone in or near retirement who wants a shorter FIA commitment, has non-qualified or qualified money they can leave alone for 5 years, and is comfortable with a smaller, lower-rated carrier in exchange for that shorter window. It's a weaker fit for anyone who wants penalty-free access to their money in the early years without paying extra for it, anyone prioritizing carrier financial strength, or anyone who wants a built-in income stream — this product doesn't offer one at any price.

Strip away the branding and this is a single-premium contract that protects your principal from index losses while crediting interest based on one of three S&P 500-linked formulas, or a declared fixed rate if you'd rather skip index exposure entirely. You are not invested in the market — you never lose principal to a market downturn, and the worst-case index credit in any strategy is 0%. What you give up for that protection is the full upside: caps limit how much of a strong index year actually reaches your account, and right now those caps (4.10% annual point-to-point, 4.20% monthly averaging, 1.75% monthly on the point-to-point/sum strategy) are on the modest side. The riders — for free withdrawal, RMDs, or an enhanced death benefit — aren't extra fees in the traditional sense; they work by shaving a fixed amount off your credited rate instead, which is a different way of paying but still a real cost.

Personal Choice Plus credits interest through four options, all tied to the S&P 500 with 100% participation: a declared-rate Fixed Account (currently 3.00%, guaranteed for the full 5-year term), an Annual Point-to-Point strategy capped at 4.10%, a Monthly Averaging strategy capped at 4.20%, and a Monthly Point-to-Point (Monthly Sum) strategy capped at 1.75% per month. In practice, the point-to-point strategies measure the index at two dates and credit interest up to the cap if the index rose; the monthly sum strategy adds up monthly changes (each capped) across the year, which can credit more in a choppy, grinding-upward market but can also net out lower in a market with a few very strong months mixed with weak ones. None of the four options can credit less than 0% in a down year — the tradeoff for that protection is the cap ceiling on the upside. The cap rates above are effective as of a February 2021 rate sheet per Wink profile data, so current rates should be confirmed directly with the carrier before purchase.

The second most consequential feature is the optional Enhanced Death Benefit. Instead of paying out the plain Cash Surrender Value at death, this rider builds a separate Benefit Base that rolls up at 150% of the net interest credited to the Accumulation Value, compounded over a 5-year accumulation period, then pays that Benefit Base to the beneficiary in equal installments over 5 years rather than a lump sum. That structure matters for someone using this contract primarily for legacy planning — it can meaningfully increase what heirs receive relative to just naming the account value as the death benefit — but it also means the payout isn't a lump sum, and any withdrawals taken along the way reduce the Benefit Base dollar-for-dollar. There's a separate 'Full Account Value Death Benefit' rider too, which costs a flat 0.35% reduction in credited rate rather than working through the rollup structure.

The surrender schedule itself is short by FIA standards — 10%, 9%, 8%, 7%, 5% over 5 years — and a market value adjustment (MVA — a mechanism that ties your surrender penalty to interest rate movement rather than keeping it fixed) applies on top of that during the surrender period. What stands out here, though, is that Personal Choice Plus does not include a standard penalty-free withdrawal amount on the base contract — most FIAs in this category build in 10% free access after year one at no extra cost. Here, you have to elect the optional 'Preferred 10% Free Withdrawal' rider (a 0.08% reduction to your credited rate) to get that same access. RMDs get similar treatment: this contract is technically RMD-friendly, but only if you've also elected the separate RMD rider (a 0.16% rate reduction) — without it, taking your required minimum distribution could still trigger a surrender charge and MVA. That's a meaningfully different liquidity posture than most peer FIAs, and it's worth factoring into the real cost of ownership.

There's no base contract fee, no M&E charge, and no explicit annual administration fee disclosed — Sentinel Security prices its riders by trimming the credited rate instead of billing a separate charge. The Preferred 10% Free Withdrawal rider costs 0.08% off your rate, the Accumulated Interest Withdrawal rider costs another 0.08%, the RMD rider costs 0.16%, and the Full Account Value Death Benefit rider costs 0.35%. Stack a few of these together and you're giving up a real chunk of an already-modest cap rate — on a product capped around 4%, a 0.35% rate reduction for one rider is proportionally significant. None of these riders carry an explicit dollar fee, which makes the true cost easy to underestimate if you're only reading the headline cap rate and not checking which riders are baked into your illustration.

Legal Entity: Sentinel Security Life Insurance Company

A.M. Best Rating: B