Athene Performance Elite 7 vs. EquiTrust MarketPower Bonus Index (2026)

Both of these are pure accumulation fixed index annuities, meaning neither one comes with a built-in income rider and neither one is meant to be turned into a paycheck the way an income-focused FIA would be. That makes the comparison simpler in one sense: there is no rider fee or payout percentage to untangle, just the surrender terms, the crediting design and the carrier itself. But it also means the decision comes down almost entirely to a tradeoff most buyers underweight going in: how much a guaranteed head start is worth against a stronger credit rating and a shorter leash on your money.

The spec sheet at a glance

Both products were current as of the source data behind this comparison; participation rates, caps and bonus terms shift often, so treat the table above as a structural comparison and pull live numbers from a current quote before you buy either one.

The bonus: 15% up front versus none at all

This is the single cleanest difference between the two contracts. Athene Performance Elite 7 carries no premium bonus whatsoever. Athene's approach with this particular contract is to skip the bonus and put the value instead into how strongly it credits interest over time. EquiTrust does the opposite, crediting a 15% bonus to your accumulation value the moment your first-year deposit is issued.

On a $100,000 deposit, that means EquiTrust puts you to work with $115,000 from day one, while Athene starts you at your original $100,000. For the bonus to actually be worth EquiTrust's longer holding period and its lower carrier rating, EquiTrust's ongoing crediting has to come reasonably close to Athene's over however many years you plan to hold the contract. We work through that math later in this comparison.

One nuance worth knowing: EquiTrust's bonus is unusually clean by industry standards. A lot of large bonus contracts, particularly the 20%-plus designs, make you hold the contract for a decade or longer before the bonus is fully yours, or claw part of it back if you surrender early. MarketPower's 15% carries no separate vesting schedule and no clawback. It is yours from the day the policy is issued, it counts toward the death benefit in full, and only the ordinary surrender charge applies if you cash out the whole contract early.

That last point is worth sitting with for a moment, because it is easy to assume any bonus this size comes with strings attached. Ask any carrier offering a bonus product exactly how and when that money actually becomes yours, since the answer varies enormously across the FIA market and can quietly undo much of the benefit if the vesting schedule runs long.

Surrender terms and how much liquidity you actually get

Athene wins this category clearly. Its 7-year schedule starts at 8.5% in year one and works its way down to 2% by year seven, at which point the contract is entirely free of charges.

Even in the friendlier 10-year states, EquiTrust's 17% first-year charge is more than double Athene's 8.5%. In the 14-year states, the gap only widens.

Outside of the surrender schedule itself, the two contracts behave almost identically: both allow a 10% annual free withdrawal of accumulation value after the first year, both apply a market value adjustment on anything you take beyond that free amount while inside the surrender period, and both waive charges for a nursing home stay or a terminal illness diagnosis.

The real question to ask yourself is whether you can commit for the full surrender window. If there is a decent chance you will need significant cash in years one through seven, Athene is the only sensible option between the two. If you can comfortably commit for a decade or more and you happen to live in one of the reduced-charge states, the gap narrows. Live in a 14-year state and the EquiTrust commitment is a genuinely long one, worth weighing carefully against the 15% head start.

Both contracts also apply a market value adjustment to withdrawals that exceed the free amount while a surrender charge would otherwise apply. That adjustment can move in either direction depending on where interest rates sit relative to when you bought the contract, so it is not automatically a penalty on top of the surrender charge, though it can add to one if rates have risen since issue.

How the two products credit interest

This is where the design philosophies diverge the most clearly.

Athene Performance Elite 7 runs entirely on participation-rate crediting with annual point-to-point measurement and no cap on the S&P 500 strategies, meaning there is no ceiling on how much upside you can capture on the strategies that use this structure. Its lineup includes options tied to the BNP Paribas Multi-Asset Diversified 5, an AI-driven global opportunities strategy, and traditional S&P 500-linked choices, split between fee-based versions that charge an ongoing strategy fee for a higher participation rate and no-fee versions that trade some upside for zero cost.

EquiTrust MarketPower runs a broader menu of ten total strategies across four underlying indices, mixing capped S&P 500 point-to-point crediting with participation-rate and monthly-sum strategies tied to other benchmarks, plus a performance-trigger option that pays a set amount if the index simply finishes flat or higher. Most of these carry no ongoing fee, with a small buy-up fee available on one S&P 500 option in exchange for a higher cap.

Both companies label their headline crediting figures as current, meaning the specific participation rates, caps and fees quoted at any moment reset periodically and are not something we print here as fixed facts. What matters more than any single number is the design itself: Athene's uncapped, participation-rate approach on volatility-managed indices rewards buyers willing to accept some strategy fees in exchange for no ceiling, while EquiTrust's mix of capped and par-rate strategies, most running with no fee at all, gives you more variety to diversify across in a single contract. Ask for current numbers on both before deciding, since the gap between them changes throughout the year. For a primer on reading these figures, see our guide to FIA participation rates.

Carrier financial strength: a clear win for Athene

Athene ranks among the country's largest FIA issuers, a scale it owes largely to its tie to Apollo Global Management's asset management arm. EquiTrust's balance sheet holds up fine too, with a healthy solvency ratio and years of appearances on industry strength lists, but its AM Best grade still lands a full letter below Athene's.

For most buyers, both carriers clear the bar, and your state's guaranty association adds a further layer of protection regardless of which one you choose. If you are placing a large share of your retirement savings into a single contract, though, Athene's higher ratings across all three major agencies are a meaningful point in its favor. Our full Athene company review and EquiTrust company review go deeper on each carrier.

Death benefit and built-in waivers: close to even

Both companies handle the death benefit and the standard waivers well, with EquiTrust holding a slight edge on the bonus specifically:

• Death benefit. Both pay the full accumulation value to your beneficiaries with no surrender charge. EquiTrust spells out that its bonus counts for the full 100% toward that death benefit.
• Free withdrawals. Both allow 10% of accumulation value annually after year one, with no charge or market value adjustment on that portion.
• Nursing home waiver. Both include this at no extra cost, though EquiTrust applies a 90-day waiting period.
• Terminal illness rider. Both include this at no cost, with EquiTrust able to advance up to 75% of the accumulation value after a one-year wait.
• Free look period. Both follow the standard state-mandated review window that lets you cancel for a full refund shortly after issue.

Overall these are close enough that the difference will rarely be the deciding factor. EquiTrust's explicit inclusion of the full bonus in the death benefit is a nice detail for buyers focused on leaving money behind, but for most people the practical effect of these waivers is nearly identical between the two contracts.

A hypothetical look at 10-year accumulation

To see how the bonus and the crediting design might play out over time, here is a hypothetical example using round, clearly labeled assumptions rather than either carrier's actual current numbers. A 60-year-old deposits $100,000 into each contract and holds for 10 years, and we model two made-up scenarios, a stronger market and an average one, to see how the arithmetic shakes out.

These are hypothetical illustrations only, built on constant annualized credit rates that would never actually happen in real markets, so treat this as a way to see the shape of the math rather than a forecast for either contract. What it shows clearly: a 15% head start is hard to give back at moderate crediting levels, so over a full 10-year hold EquiTrust's bonus tends to keep it ahead in this simplified model. At stronger crediting levels Athene's design closes some of the gap but does not fully erase it inside 10 years, especially once any applicable strategy fee is factored in on Athene's higher-participation options.

Stretch the timeline further and the comparison shifts again. Athene's surrender period ends at year seven, which frees that money to be redeployed into whatever looks best at the time, while a 14-year-state EquiTrust contract is still inside its surrender window at that point. Being free to move capital after seven years instead of ten or fourteen has real value of its own, separate from the raw accumulation math.

Who should pick which

Athene Performance Elite 7 fits you if:

• You want the shortest realistic surrender commitment available on an FIA, at 7 years
• A top-tier carrier rating across every major agency matters to you
• You are comfortable paying a strategy fee on certain options in exchange for uncapped upside
• You want access to strategies beyond a plain S&P 500 tracker
• You have at least $25,000 to deposit and might want to redeploy that money after year seven
• There is a real chance you will need liquidity sometime in years one through seven

EquiTrust MarketPower Bonus Index fits you if:

• A large, immediately vested premium bonus matters more to you than the ongoing crediting design
• You can comfortably commit for 10 to 14 years
• Your deposit falls between $10,000 and $25,000, below Athene's minimum
• You live in one of the reduced-charge states where the schedule shortens to 10 years
• Including the full bonus in the death benefit matters for how you think about leaving money to heirs
• You would rather diversify across several capped and par-rate strategies than lean on one or two uncapped ones

Neither is the right fit if:

• You need guaranteed lifetime income, since neither contract offers a rider for that
• You need meaningful liquidity beyond the standard 10% annual free withdrawal during years one through seven
• You are under roughly 50, since a multi-year surrender period rarely serves a purely accumulation-focused goal at that age as well as other options might

Bottom line

Both of these contracts are strong choices within their own lane. Athene Performance Elite 7 suits buyers who want a shorter horizon, top-tier ratings across the board, and a crediting design built around ongoing performance rather than a bonus, particularly if you would like the option to walk away and redeploy by your early seventies.

EquiTrust MarketPower Bonus Index suits buyers comfortable with a longer commitment and a still-solvent but lower-rated carrier, in exchange for a meaningful, fully vested bonus on day one, especially if you happen to live in one of the states where the surrender schedule shortens to 10 years.

If you cannot decide, the deciding question is almost always how long you can honestly commit the money. Everything else in this comparison, the bonus, the crediting design, even the rating gap, matters less than an honest answer to that one question. A shorter horizon points toward Athene almost automatically, and a decade-plus horizon in a reduced-charge state tilts the math back toward EquiTrust.

Get a quote on both and let the actual current numbers, not the numbers printed in any article, make the final call. We can run both illustrations side by side using your age, state and deposit amount, and walk you through exactly where each contract lands for your situation before you sign anything.