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Annuity Companies to Avoid: An Evidence-Based Screen

There is no responsible permanent blacklist. The useful question is whether a specific issuing company and contract pass measurable checks today.

What “avoid” should mean

Avoid a company or contract when the evidence does not clear your written standard—not because of a sales story, online rating, ownership structure, or one person’s experience. An annuity is backed by the legal insurance company named in the contract, so research that entity rather than relying only on a parent-company brand.

We do not label a named carrier “bad” from a single metric. A complaint index can be volatile for a small company, a rating action needs its stated rationale, and an attractive new-business rate says nothing by itself about renewal terms or liquidity.

Companies that currently trigger the screen

This list includes a company only when a published, company-specific measure crosses a stated threshold. Missing evidence is shown as missing rather than treated as a zero. Results were reviewed July 24, 2026.

Issuing companyComplaint resultAM Best historyOur rate-history resultScreen result
Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Company
NAIC 61115		Not scored: an exact-year, multi-year NAIC individual-annuity series was not verified for publication. NAIC searchAM Best lowered the Financial Strength Rating from B++ to B on January 23, 2026 and kept it under review with negative implications. AM Best recordNot scored: our stored market history does not retain a comparable carrier-level series for this company. Market historyTriggers financial-strength review. Compare alternatives and obtain current regulatory and contract information before proceeding; this is not a claim that every contract is unsuitable.

Threshold used here: a verified multi-year complaint-index pattern above 1.00, or an AM Best downgrade/negative review during the review period. A company is not cleared or condemned by one cell; the screen tells you where additional due diligence is warranted.

What our rate history can and cannot prove

Our stored CANNEX market series shows the average of the top ten five-year MYGA rates moving from 5.92% on March 18, 2026 to 6.01% on June 30, 2026—a 0.09 percentage-point increase. That is a market benchmark, not a carrier score.

We do not retain a comparable historical series for every carrier and product. When that series is absent, this page reports “not scored” and does not infer that a company cut rates or lagged the market. See the published rate-statistics methodology and monthly records.

Four checks you can enumerate

Check 1

Complaint ratio

Start with the NAIC complaint index for the issuing legal entity and the relevant product line. An index of 1.00 represents the expected share of complaints for the company’s market share; compare several years, not one isolated result.

NAIC Consumer Insurance Search

Check 2

Financial-strength change

Record the current AM Best Financial Strength Rating, outlook, and each downgrade or negative outlook change in the review period. The direction and reason for a change matter more than a label viewed without context.

AM Best rating search

Check 3

Rate history

For products in our CANNEX records, compare like-for-like terms and strategies over time. Count renewal-cap or participation-rate reductions separately from changes to new-business rates; they affect different contract owners.

AnnuityRatesHQ rate-change archive

Check 4

Contract restrictions

Enumerate surrender years, annual penalty-free withdrawal limits, market value adjustment terms, rider charges, and state availability from the actual contract and disclosure documents.

State insurance department directory

A repeatable decision rule

  1. Identify the exact issuing company and contract form.
  2. Record three to five years of NAIC complaint indexes for the relevant line. Calculate the average and count the years above 1.00.
  3. Record the current AM Best rating and every rating or outlook change during the same period.
  4. Compare the product’s rate history only with the same term, strategy, premium band, and state where possible.
  5. List every surrender charge, rider fee, market value adjustment, withdrawal limit, and material exclusion.
  6. Set your thresholds before looking at a carrier. If a contract fails, document the failed check and choose an alternative that passes.

Red flags that belong to the contract or sales process

  • The salesperson will not provide the contract, disclosure statement, or carrier illustration before you apply.
  • The recommendation depends on an asserted market return that the contract does not guarantee.
  • The surrender period conflicts with when you may need the money.
  • A bonus is presented without showing its vesting, recapture, rider cost, or effect on other terms.
  • The proposed exchange is not compared with keeping the existing contract, including a fresh surrender-charge period and tax consequences.

These are reasons to stop the transaction and investigate. They are not, by themselves, proof that every product from the issuing company should be avoided.

Compare evidence before choosing

Review current rates, product details, and financial-strength context together. Guarantees depend on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurer.

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