F&G SecureIncome 7 Annuity Review (2026)

What the F&G SecureIncome 7 is built to do

F&G SecureIncome 7 is a fixed index annuity from Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company, and its whole design points at one job: turning a lump sum into a paycheck you cannot outlive, for one person or a couple. It carries a 7-year surrender period, shorter than the 10-year term you will find on most income-focused contracts in this category, plus a 7% Income Base Bonus and a 7% compound roll-up that build the number your future income is based on.

Growth is almost beside the point here. The account value exists mainly to fund withdrawals and absorb the rider fee; the figure that actually matters is the Income Base, which grows at whichever is larger: the 7% compound roll-up or the account value itself. Once you decide to start income, sometimes as early as age 50 for the younger spouse on a joint contract, F&G applies your age-based payout percentage to the Income Base and starts writing a check for as long as you (or you and your spouse) are alive.

F&G aims this contract at buyers roughly 55 to 70 who are somewhere between five and fifteen years from retirement, want a guaranteed number they can plan around, and are comfortable trading indexed upside for that certainty. Within F&G's own lineup, SecureIncome 7 is the shorter-surrender sibling of SecureIncome 10, which typically pairs a longer commitment with a richer bonus.

How the income engine works

Two numbers run side by side inside this contract. The account value is your real money: it grows with index credits (or a fixed rate), can be withdrawn from up to the free-withdrawal limit, and passes to your beneficiary at death. The Income Base is a separate accounting figure used only to calculate your guaranteed paycheck. It cannot be cashed out, and it grows faster than the account value because of the bonus and the roll-up.

You pay for that engine with a 1.15% annual rider fee, taken from the account value regardless of how the index performs that year. In exchange, once you activate income (after year one, and once the younger annuitant on a joint contract reaches age 50), F&G guarantees the payment for life, even if the account value eventually runs out.

You choose single or joint coverage when you set the contract up, and that choice is permanent. A single payout rate at any given age is higher than the joint rate at the same age, since F&G only expects to pay out over one lifetime instead of two. Couples give up some payout percentage in exchange for the certainty that the survivor keeps collecting after the first death, which is usually the point of buying a joint contract in the first place.

What guaranteed income looks like on $100,000

Here is the guaranteed math a $100,000 deposit produces, using the contract's own stated terms. The 7% Income Base Bonus lifts a $100,000 premium to a $107,000 starting Income Base immediately, before any index credit or roll-up is applied.

F&G's payout table sets a 6.90% guaranteed rate for a joint contract that starts income right away at ages 65 and 63. Applied to the bonus-adjusted Income Base, that comes to $107,000 multiplied by 6.90%, or roughly $7,383 a year for both lives. Applied to the plain $100,000 premium with no bonus counted, the same rate produces $6,900 a year, which is the figure F&G tends to lead with in its own materials. Either way, once that payment starts, it is contractually guaranteed for as long as either spouse is alive, even if the account value is drawn down to zero along the way.

If a qualifying impairment prevents either spouse from performing two of six activities of daily living after the third contract year, the joint impairment multiplier of 1.5x can raise that payment. On the $6,900 base figure, that works out to roughly $10,350 a year while the impairment lasts. On a single-life contract, the multiplier is higher, at 2.0x, since a single payout rate starts out higher than a joint one at the same age.

How the joint payout compares

Joint payout rates on income-focused fixed index annuities vary quite a bit by carrier, by the ages you use, and by how the contract's roll-up and bonus are structured, and they change often enough that we do not print a side-by-side rate table here. What matters more than any single number is when you plan to start income. SecureIncome 7's payout rate is generally viewed as middle-of-the-pack among comparable income riders when a couple wants to start withdrawals immediately, but the picture shifts if you can wait.

A buyer who defers is the one this contract rewards. Every year you hold off on withdrawals, the Income Base compounds at 7% (assuming the account value does not outpace it) and stays untouched by the payout calculation until you flip the switch. Someone in their late 50s who plans to wait a decade before drawing income captures a meaningfully larger Income Base than someone who starts on day one, since the roll-up has time to work before the payout rate is even applied.

To put a number on it: the same $107,000 bonus-adjusted Income Base that produced $7,383 a year immediately grows to roughly $210,485 after a full 10 years of untouched 7% compounding, as the next section walks through. Applying that same 6.90% joint rate to the larger, deferred Income Base would produce close to $14,524 a year instead, nearly double the immediate-start figure, simply because the roll-up had a decade to work before any payout began. Payout percentages also climb with the age you start at, so a deferred buyer typically benefits twice: once from the larger Income Base, and again from a higher percentage applied to it. Run your own age, deposit and start date through our income rider calculator to see the difference deferral makes for your situation.

Buyers who need income immediately, rather than after a deferral period, are the ones most likely to find a stronger joint payout rate elsewhere, since SecureIncome 7's real advantage shows up over time, not on day one. A commercial single premium immediate annuity is also worth pricing for comparison if guaranteed income starting right away, with no moving parts, is the only goal.

The 7% bonus and 7% roll-up, explained

The marketing shorthand ("7% and 7%") glosses over two details worth knowing before you buy. First, the roll-up only credits on your original premium, it does not apply to any additional money you add to the contract later, and it stops the day you begin taking withdrawals. It runs for the lesser of 10 years, until you turn 85, or until income starts, whichever arrives first, and it does not restart on its own.

Second, the bonus is added once, at issue, directly to the Income Base rather than to your account value. Combined with a full decade of 7% compounding, a $107,000 starting Income Base grows to roughly $210,485 by year ten, assuming you have not started withdrawals. That larger number is what a deferred buyer's eventual paycheck gets calculated from.

The Restart provision gives disciplined savers a second chance at that growth. Any time after your fifth contract year, and still inside the original roll-up window, you can elect to reset the clock. If your account value has grown past your current Income Base by that point, thanks to strong index credits, F&G bumps the Income Base up to match the account value and starts a new 10-year roll-up period. That new roll-up rate can be lower than 7%, though it is contractually floored at 2%, and the rider fee on a restarted contract can climb to as high as 1.50%. It is a genuine second opportunity, not a guaranteed one.

Index options and crediting

SecureIncome 7 keeps its crediting menu simple and transparent: every strategy tracks the S&P 500, with no proprietary or multi-asset indices to research. You can choose among a one-year point-to-point strategy with a participation rate, a one-year point-to-point strategy with a cap, a one-year performance trigger strategy, a two-year point-to-point strategy with a cap, and a fixed-rate account that credits a set rate regardless of the index.

Because caps, participation rates and the fixed-account rate move with the market and get reset periodically by the carrier, we do not publish specific numbers here; check the quote box on this page for what F&G is currently offering in your state. What is worth understanding regardless of the numbers on any given day: a participation-rate strategy applies a percentage of the index's full gain, a capped strategy applies the full gain up to a ceiling, and a performance trigger pays a flat, pre-set amount in any year the index finishes positive, no matter how small the gain. All four carry a guaranteed floor, so a flat or negative index year credits zero, never a loss.

Inside the income rider (EGMWB)

The Enhanced Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit is the rider that does the actual work here, and its mechanics are worth knowing in full. The 1.15% fee is charged annually against the account value, not the Income Base, so on a $107,000 starting Income Base you would pay roughly $1,231 in the first year alone. The 7% roll-up compounds on the Income Base for up to 10 years, capped by age 85 or by the start of withdrawals, whichever comes first. The 7% bonus applies only to your initial premium, never to money you add afterward.

Once you begin taking withdrawals, F&G also applies an annual step-up: on each contract anniversary, if your account value has grown past your current Income Base, the Income Base ratchets up to match it, and your guaranteed payment is recalculated using your age at that time. Any withdrawal larger than your scheduled Guaranteed Withdrawal Payment reduces the Income Base by more than the dollar amount taken out, which is the rider's built-in penalty for treating it like a savings account instead of an income stream.

Rider fees on comparable income riders vary from carrier to carrier, and F&G's 1.15% sits in a reasonable middle range rather than at either extreme. Whether the rider pays for itself depends heavily on how long you and your spouse live once income starts; most joint households who begin withdrawals in their mid-60s will draw well past the point where the guarantee starts outperforming a simple systematic withdrawal, but a single buyer with below-average life expectancy should weigh a single premium immediate annuity instead.

Surrender schedule and liquidity

SecureIncome 7's 7-year surrender schedule is genuinely shorter than what most income-oriented fixed index annuities require, and the free-withdrawal allowance softens it further.

A market value adjustment also applies on top of any surrender charge in most states, tied to a bond-market benchmark, so withdrawals beyond the free amount can cost more when interest rates have risen since you bought the contract. It is waived entirely in Alaska, Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington. The built-in nursing home, home health care and terminal illness waivers are fairly reachable for a 65-year-old buyer: most states set the bar at 60 days of needing that kind of care, or a diagnosis giving you 12 months or less to live, and require a one-year wait after issue before you can claim it, though several of the states above skip that wait. Review our guide to surrender charges before you settle on a term length.

Is the bonus worth it?

The 7% Income Base Bonus is real money in the sense that it raises your future guaranteed paycheck, but it never becomes cash you can withdraw or a larger death benefit. If you surrender the contract early, or never turn income on, the bonus contributes nothing.

For a buyer who does use the rider as intended, the math is straightforward: a $100,000 deposit becomes a $107,000 Income Base on day one. At the same 6.90% joint payout rate used above, that is the difference between $6,900 and $7,383 a year, or about $483 more annually simply from the bonus. Stretched across a 25-year retirement, that gap adds up to roughly $12,000 in additional guaranteed income, without factoring in any roll-up growth at all.

The bonus matters even more to a deferred buyer, since it is the starting point the roll-up compounds from. Without it, $100,000 compounding at 7% for 10 years reaches about $196,715. With the bonus counted in from day one, that same decade of compounding on $107,000 reaches roughly $210,485, a gap of nearly $13,800 in Income Base before any payout percentage is even applied. Over a long retirement, that difference alone can be worth several thousand dollars a year in extra guaranteed income.

Who the SecureIncome 7 fits

Best for:

• A joint household in their late 50s to mid-60s who wants guaranteed lifetime income in 5 to 10 years and values a shorter, 7-year commitment over squeezing out the highest possible payout rate today
• A buyer who wants S&P 500-only transparency and plans to use the point-to-point participation strategy as a primary allocation
• A household that wants a real long-term-care backstop built into the income rider itself, through the impairment multiplier
• A saver disciplined enough to use the Restart option if the account value outpaces the Income Base after year five

A weaker fit for:

• A 65-or-older buyer who needs the largest possible immediate joint income; some competing income riders pay more from day one
• Someone who wants pure accumulation and has no interest in the income rider, who would generally do better in a plain multi-year guaranteed annuity with no rider fee
• A buyer chasing maximum indexed upside rather than income certainty
• A single buyer with below-average life expectancy, who a licensed strategist may steer toward a single premium immediate annuity instead

Other annuity products to consider

If you are comparing SecureIncome 7 against other income-focused contracts, these are worth a look:

• Athene Ascent Pro 10 Bonus: a 10-year income FIA with a larger upfront bonus
• Nationwide Peak 10: a 10-year income FIA with its own bonus income rider
• North American Income Pay Pro 10: another 10-year income-focused contract to price side by side
• F&G's own carrier review: more on F&G's ownership, ratings history and full product lineup

We can quote SecureIncome 7 next to these and other top-rated carriers so you can compare guaranteed dollars, not just headline percentages.