ReliaStar Life Annuity Review (2026)

How ReliaStar fits inside Voya Financial

ReliaStar Life Insurance Company is a Minneapolis-based carrier that operates as a legal entity under the umbrella of Voya Financial, one of the country's larger retirement and investment services firms. Voya is the brand people recognize from workplace 403(b) and 457 plans, but a meaningful share of the underlying contracts were actually issued in ReliaStar's name. In plain terms: an annuity paper trail that says ReliaStar means you are, and always have been, a Voya customer.

Understanding how that came to be helps if you are trying to place your own contract. ReliaStar became part of ING Group's U.S. expansion in the early 2000s. After the 2008 financial crisis pushed ING to divest its American insurance arm, that business was spun off as ING U.S., which took the Voya name in 2013. If your paperwork instead reads ING Life Insurance and Annuity Company or Security-Connecticut Life Insurance Company, you landed in the same place: all three now sit under Voya Financial.

ReliaStar and Voya's financial strength

AM Best affirmed the Voya Financial insurance group, ReliaStar included, at A (Excellent) in April 2026. That is a tier most conservative annuity buyers consider a reasonable floor, and it reflects a business built mainly on steady, fee-based retirement plan revenue rather than the kind of interest rate spread a typical MYGA carrier depends on. Voya reports assets under management and administration north of $1.1 trillion, and its size as a public company (NYSE: VOYA) means the numbers behind that rating are easy to verify.

Because so much of Voya's income comes from managing other people's retirement money rather than writing new annuity contracts, it simply does not chase the individual MYGA market the way carriers like Athene or Oceanview do. That is a business model choice, not a strength concern, but it explains why you will not find Voya on many rate comparison sheets.

What ReliaStar and Voya actually sell

Very little of this business runs through the individual retail channel that most annuity shoppers browse:

• Variable annuities. ReliaStar and its sister entity ILIAC issued a large block of variable contracts, many carrying living benefits such as guaranteed minimum withdrawal or income riders, originally sold through financial advisors and broker-dealers.
• 403(b) and 457 plan annuities. Voya is a major provider of annuity products inside employer retirement plans, especially for teachers, nurses and other public-sector employees, issued at the group level rather than as individual retail contracts.
• Structured settlement annuities. ReliaStar has a long history of funding legal settlements through structured annuity payouts.

If you are hunting for a new, competitively priced fixed annuity, ReliaStar is not the carrier to seek out by name. Compare current MYGA offers from carriers actively competing on rate instead.

Who now services your ReliaStar contract

This is the detail that trips people up most. In June 2018, Voya sold its closed block of older individual variable annuities, a group that includes many ReliaStar-issued contracts, to Venerable Insurance and Annuity Company. If your contract falls into that group, you no longer log in at Voya's website; account access moved to my.venerable.com, and Venerable now runs both variable and fixed annuity servicing for that block.

Venerable's service lines break down by product:

Written correspondence for these accounts goes to Venerable Service Center at 699 Walnut Street, Suite 1350, in Des Moines, Iowa, ZIP 50309-3942.

Contracts outside that 2018 sale, mainly workplace retirement plan business, are still handled directly by Voya, reachable from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern on weekdays at 1-800-366-9387, or online at www.voya.com. If you are unsure which bucket your contract falls into, either service line can point you to the right one.

What existing ReliaStar policyholders should check

• Identify your servicer first. Confirm whether your account now lives with Venerable or is still handled through Voya directly before you call anyone with questions.
• Protect any living benefit. Contracts written in the 2000s and 2010s often carry a guaranteed minimum withdrawal or income benefit that can be worth substantially more than the account balance shown on your statement. Do not surrender one of these without running the numbers first.
• Check your surrender schedule. If your contract is still inside its surrender period, cashing out early will likely cost you a penalty.
• Weigh a 1035 exchange carefully. Once the surrender period has passed and a contract's guaranteed benefits no longer outweigh its ongoing fees, moving the balance into a newer, better-priced annuity through a 1035 exchange may improve your outcome. A licensed strategist can run that comparison against what is currently available.

Is ReliaStar or Voya right for you?

ReliaStar and Voya make the most sense for two groups: people who already own a ReliaStar-issued contract and want clarity on where it stands, and workers whose employer-sponsored 403(b) or 457 plan happens to run through Voya. If neither applies and you are shopping for a new fixed annuity with a competitive guaranteed rate, look at carriers that actively price for the independent agent channel rather than searching for ReliaStar directly.