The AnnuityVoice 2026 RILA Honor Roll: 6 Products Earned an A+ or A−

The honor roll

Ranked by composite score. Click any product to see its full sub-score breakdown, the locked Monte Carlo scenario, and a historical-regime replay.

For the full sortable index — including the B, C, and D tiers — see annuityvoice.com/ratings.

What every honor-roll product has in common

Read the list above as a group and a pattern jumps out.

1. None of them carry a guaranteed living benefit rider.

All six are pure structured-growth contracts — no GLWB, no GMIB. The income-rider variants of the same products (Allianz Index Advantage+ Income, Equitable SCS Income, Lincoln Level Advantage Income, Prudential FlexGuard Income, Brighthouse Shield Pay Plus) sit dozens of points lower because the rider fee compounds against the buffer protection the contract already provides. The standardized scoring scenario — a 60-year-old electing income at 65 — is the most rider-friendly cut in our methodology, and the riders still don't earn their fee.

2. All six have a 0.00% mortality & expense charge.

RILAs don't need an M&E charge — the carrier already earns its margin through the cap spread. Any product that also layers an M&E on top is paying for itself twice, and it shows up directly in the Net Value sub-score.

3. Carrier credit is uniformly investment grade.

Four AM Best A+ ratings, two A's. The honor roll self-selects toward higher-quality balance sheets because the same carriers that can price competitively on caps and fees tend to be the ones with the capital to do so.

4. Two of the six are PE-owned (Athene, Global Atlantic).

Our methodology applies a small credit-rating deduction for PE ownership. We don't apply a large one — no PE-owned US life insurer has actually failed under that ownership structure, and the credit-rating agencies themselves already bake the risk into the base rating, so a large penalty would double-count.

What isn't on the list — and why it matters

Some of the largest-selling RILAs in the country are not on the honor roll. That's not a courtesy gap; it's a methodology call.

• Equitable's SCS family — one of the biggest-selling RILA brands — sits at D+ for both the flagship SCS and SCS Income, and at D− for SCS Plus. The contracts themselves are competently designed; the income-rider variant trades growth for income at a price the scoring scenario can't justify, and the Plus variant adds explicit fee for features the buffer already covers.
• Brighthouse's Shield family runs from B− (Shield Level II 6-Year) to D+ (Shield Level Pay Plus). The 6-year product is two rungs below the honor roll; the pay-plus income-rider variant is four letter grades below it. Same pattern: rider drags grade.
• Prudential FlexGuard is at C+. FlexGuard Income is at C−.
• Nationwide DPA, DPA 2.0, and Defender, Jackson Market Link Pro, and the Lincoln Level Advantage non-advisory share classes all sit at B− or below. Solid contracts in places — but the surrender schedule, the M&E layer, or the rider price keep them below the cut.

The single most useful question to ask in front of any RILA recommendation: "is this the no-fee, no-rider, advisor share class — and if not, why not?" That one question moves a buyer from the bottom half of the table to the top.

How this rating was produced

Every grade above comes from one number, the composite, which is the weighted sum of four sub-scores:

composite = Σ(weight × sub-score), mapped through 5-point letter-grade bands (A+ ≥ 95, A 90–95, A− 85–90, B+ 80–85, …). The full bands and the per-sub-score formulas are at annuityvoice.com/methodology.

A note on what this honor roll is and isn't

This is a publication, not a recommendation engine. AnnuityVoice does not sell annuities, take a referral fee from carriers, or accept carrier sponsorship. Every grade is the same grade every reader sees; there is no advisor-only tier. The sub-scores and the scoring scenario are deliberately public so that any actuary, advisor, or consumer can challenge the numbers on their own terms.

Letter grades are useful for a one-line summary and useless for an actual buying decision. The right way to use this article is to take the shortlist of six, read the rating page for each, and then run the specific contract against the buyer's actual age, premium, election age, and risk tolerance in the AnnuityVoice calculator. The scenario behind the grade isn't the buyer's scenario. The grade tells you the contract is worth modeling. The model tells you whether to buy.