EverStead MYGA 10-Year review

Depends on deposit size and time horizon. For someone depositing $100,000 or more who genuinely wants a 10-year lock, the 5.20%–5.30% rate is solid and the free-withdrawal terms are better than many MYGA peers. For someone depositing less than $100,000, the low-band rate (4.95%) is available at much shorter durations within the same EverStead family, which removes most of the incentive to go long. And for anyone unsure they'll want their money locked for a full decade, the surrender schedule — starting at 9% and easing only gradually — is a real constraint to weigh before signing.

Someone would buy EverStead MYGA 10-Year mainly for the certainty: a single guaranteed rate that doesn't require any decisions about crediting strategies, indices, or renewal timing for ten years. The 10% annual free withdrawal, inclusive of RMDs, means the money isn't fully frozen even during the lock — a meaningful difference from MYGAs that only carve out RMDs as a separate add-on. The chronic illness and terminal illness waivers add a modest safety valve if health circumstances change during the term. And for someone who already knows they want a decade-long fixed-income anchor in a portfolio, not having to re-shop or re-underwrite for ten years has real value.

This fits savers roughly in their late 50s through 70s who have non-qualified or IRA dollars they won't need for a decade, who have at least $100,000 to deposit to clear the top rate band, and who want a pure fixed-rate instrument rather than anything index-linked. It's a reasonable fit for someone consolidating a portion of a retirement portfolio into a bond-like allocation for ten years. It's a poor fit for anyone who might need principal access within the surrender period, anyone depositing under $25,000 (the funding minimum) or under $100,000 (where the rate drops to the same level available in Talcott's own 3- and 4-year contracts), and anyone who hasn't compared this against the shorter EverStead durations first.

You are buying a single-premium, single-rate contract: Talcott takes your deposit, guarantees an interest rate for exactly ten years, and pays that rate regardless of what happens in the market. There's no index participation, no cap, no spread — it functions like a ten-year CD with tax-deferred growth and an insurance wrapper, not like the fixed-indexed products that share shelf space with it. The rate is banded by deposit size: 4.95% under $100,000, 5.20% from $100,000 to $499,999, and 5.30% at $500,000 and above, all as of the 11/3/2025 rate sheet — these rates move with new issues and reset on renewal, though never below the contractual minimum. Nothing in the available materials suggests this rate is discounted by an underlying rider fee, because there is no rider attached to the base contract.

The core mechanic is a Guaranteed Option Period (GOP) — Talcott locks in whatever rate applies to your deposit size at issue, and that rate holds for the full ten years without adjustment. At the end of the ten years, there's a 30-day window to take a full or partial withdrawal free of surrender charges and MVA, or to do nothing, at which point the contract automatically renews into a new GOP at whatever rate is then current. That auto-renewal detail matters: if you don't actively act in that 30-day window, you're re-committing to another guaranteed-rate term rather than getting your money back by default. Within the term, systematic withdrawal options — a set dollar amount, a percentage, or interest-only — are available on monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual schedules for anyone who wants steady cash flow without breaching the free-withdrawal limit.

The secondary feature worth noting is the waiver package: a Nursing Home/Hospital Confinement Waiver and a Terminal Illness Waiver, both of which let you access the contract value free of surrender charges and MVA if you're confined to a facility or diagnosed with a terminal illness, once you're past the first contract anniversary. This isn't a chronic-illness rider in the sense of paying for enhanced benefits — it's a built-in safety valve with no separate fee disclosed in the available materials. It matters most for the exact population this product targets, since a decade-long surrender schedule is the one real downside of this contract, and the waiver is the mechanism that softens it if health circumstances change.

The surrender schedule is a real ten-year commitment: 9% in year one, stepping down by roughly a point a year to 0.5% in year ten, with a market value adjustment (MVA) layered on top of any withdrawal that exceeds the free amount. MVA means the penalty for early withdrawal isn't fixed — it moves with interest rates, so if rates have risen since you funded the contract, the MVA can add to the stated surrender percentage rather than offset it. Working the other direction, the 10% annual free-withdrawal allowance starts in year one, not after a waiting period as some MYGAs require, and it's calculated on the contract value at the start of each contract year. Required minimum distributions are folded into that same 10% allowance rather than treated as a separate carve-out, which is friendly design but also means a large RMD on a sizable contract could eat into the room you'd otherwise have for discretionary withdrawals.

There's no disclosed base contract fee and no rider fee, because there's no rider attached — this is about as fee-simple as an annuity gets. The real cost isn't a stated percentage; it's the opportunity cost baked into the rate band structure. Anyone depositing under $100,000 earns 4.95%, which is identical to the top rate on Talcott's own 3- and 4-year EverStead contracts, meaning a smaller depositor gives up six extra years of liquidity for zero additional yield versus a much shorter commitment. Even at the top band, the 5.30% rate matches Talcott's 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-year versions exactly, so the true price of the extra one-to-four years of lockup in the 10-year contract is measured in flexibility given up, not in a fee line.

Legal Entity: Talcott Resolution Life and Annuity Insurance Company

A.M. Best Rating: A-