EclipseMark 10 review

Yes, with real caveats. EclipseMark 10 is a reasonable annuity for someone who wants principal protection with index-linked upside and is comfortable locking money up for a full decade. It's a weaker fit for anyone who wants income guarantees built in, needs access to more than 15% of the account annually, or hasn't fully committed to the 10-year horizon — a shorter EclipseMark duration or a different carrier's shorter FIA would serve that buyer better.

Someone would buy EclipseMark 10 for the combination of principal protection and a wider-than-average set of ways to earn interest. The Duo Growth strategy is the standout: it pairs a capped S&P 500 IQ Index return with a small guaranteed earnings rate, so even a flat or negative index year still credits something. The fixed account's 4.00% rate is locked for the full 10-year term, not just a first-year teaser, which is unusual and worth noting. And the 15% free withdrawal allowance gives more breathing room than the 10% ceiling common on competing 10-year FIAs.

This fits a buyer roughly 55-75 years old with non-qualified or qualified retirement savings who wants growth potential without direct market risk, doesn't need the money for at least 10 years, and isn't looking for a guaranteed income stream from this specific contract. It's less appropriate for someone under 55 who might want portability sooner, anyone who anticipates needing more than 15% of the account value in a given year, or a buyer whose primary goal is locking in guaranteed lifetime income — that buyer should look at an income-rider product or a SPIA/DIA instead.

You're not buying stock market exposure. You're buying an insurance contract that credits interest based on formulas tied to index performance — capped point-to-point returns, a participation rate, or a blended cap-plus-guaranteed-rate design — while your principal stays protected from direct index losses. None of the crediting methods here hand you the market's full return; caps and participation rates exist specifically to limit the insurer's cost of offering that protection. The "IQ" and "MegaTrends" index options add a layer worth understanding, too — these are volatility-managed or multi-asset indices designed by the index provider, not raw stock benchmarks, and their long-term behavior is less established than the plain S&P 500.

EclipseMark 10 offers five crediting strategies. The Fixed Interest Account pays a stated rate — currently 4.00% — guaranteed for the full 10-year surrender term, which is longer than the 1-year guarantee typical of FIA fixed buckets. The One-Year Point-to-Point With Cap strategy credits S&P 500 gains up to a cap, currently 8.00%. A Cap Lock variant lets you lock in a rate (currently 6.50%, guaranteed for 7 years) at issue with no ability to reallocate later — a tradeoff of certainty for flexibility. The One-Year Point-to-Point With Participation Rate strategy, tied to the S&P 500 IQ Index or BofA Global MegaTrends Index, credits a percentage of the index gain — 55% and 105% respectively, each guaranteed for 10 years. And the Duo Growth strategy blends a smaller cap (currently 5.75% on the S&P 500 IQ Index) with a 2.00% guaranteed earnings rate, so you get a modest floor even in years the index doesn't cooperate.

The second feature worth flagging is the minimum guaranteed surrender value (MGSV) structure: 87.5% of premium, less withdrawals, accruing at a rate that's contractually guaranteed to never fall below 1.00% for the life of the contract, with a current nonforfeiture rate of 1.75% for contracts issued on or after September 25, 2025. That's the backstop under all the index crediting — the worst-case outcome if every index strategy underperforms for a decade. It's a standard structure for the category, but the guaranteed floor rate is worth knowing rather than assuming.

You're trading a full 10 years of liquidity for the protection and crediting menu described above. The surrender charge schedule starts at 9.4% in year one and steps down by roughly a point a year through 0.5% in year 10 — a standard declining schedule for this duration.

A market value adjustment (MVA) also applies, meaning the penalty on an early surrender can move up or down with prevailing interest rates, independent of the stated surrender charge. The 15% annual free withdrawal (available starting in year two, subject to a $500 minimum withdrawal and a $2,000 minimum remaining surrender value) is genuinely useful — it's meaningfully above the 10% that's standard in this category — and required minimum distributions, annuitization, and death are all surrender-charge-free. There are also waivers for nursing home confinement (30+ consecutive days, after the first contract year) and terminal illness diagnosed with a life expectancy of 12 months or less. None of that changes the basic math: this is retirement money you should not expect to need in full before the 10-year mark.

There's no explicit rider fee here because there's no rider — EclipseMark 10 doesn't charge an annual percentage for a feature you might never use. The real cost shows up structurally, in the caps and participation rates that limit your upside relative to a direct index investment. An 8.00% cap or a 55% participation rate means you're giving up a meaningful share of a strong index year in exchange for the fact that a bad year credits zero (or, on the Duo Growth strategy, the small guaranteed 2.00%) rather than a loss. The Cap Lock strategy trades away future reallocation flexibility for rate certainty — worth weighing carefully since you can't move out of it once it's chosen at issue. Base contract and rider fees beyond the cap/participation-rate structure weren't disclosed as separate charges in the reviewed materials. Note that this review covers the base EclipseMark 10; a companion "EclipseMark 10 Plus" version trades a 12% vesting premium bonus for reduced crediting rates, which is a different tradeoff than what's described here.

Legal Entity: Standard Insurance Company

Parent: StanCorp Financial Group, Inc.

AM Best Rating: A (Excellent), 3rd of 13 ratings, as of May 2025