Nationwide New Heights Select 9 Review (2026)

What is the Nationwide New Heights Select 9?

New Heights Select 9 is a single-premium fixed index annuity issued by Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Company, with the "9" marking its nine-year surrender schedule. Like any FIA, your money is never invested directly in the market. A weak year in your chosen index credits nothing, but your principal stays put either way, while a strong year lets Nationwide credit you a share of the gain under the strategy you picked.

Three separate layers make up this contract, and it helps to think of them separately before comparing it to anything else. The base contract handles the nine-year surrender schedule, a wide menu of index strategies, and a daily value-tracking feature that is uncommon in this market. Layered on top, four optional riders (only one allowed per contract) cover either lifetime income or an enhanced death benefit. Behind all of it sits Nationwide itself, a Fortune 100, mutual-affiliated insurer with financial strength ratings near the top of the industry. If you are new to how fixed index annuities work at all, start with our fixed index annuity guide first; this review assumes the basics and goes straight to what sets this contract apart.

What a $100,000 deposit can guarantee at age 65

Rather than bury the income math under feature descriptions, here is a worked example showing exactly how the numbers build for a buyer who elects the optional bonus rider.

Here is the arithmetic behind it, step by step:

• At issue, the rider adds a 30% bonus straight to a separate ledger called the income base. $100,000 becomes a $130,000 income base immediately.
• Over the next five years, that base compounds at a guaranteed 9.5% annually, with no index performance required to hit it: $130,000 grown at 9.5% a year for five years works out to roughly $204,650.
• At age 65, Nationwide applies its stated lifetime payout percentage to that income base. Using a representative payout figure a little above 5%, the guaranteed annual income for life comes to just over $10,500 a year.

None of this depends on how any index performs, because the 9.5% growth rate on the income base is a contractual guarantee, not a market-linked credit. The one number that is not guaranteed is your actual contract value, the amount you could surrender or leave to heirs, which tracks real index results and will generally sit well under the income base once the bonus and rollup have done their work. Ask your strategist to run the exact payout percentage and dollar figures for your own age, deposit and state, since both change over time.

How a deferred, bonus-rider annuity compares to other guaranteed income paths

Buyers often want to know how this structure stacks up against simpler alternatives: buying an immediate annuity outright, parking money in a multi-year guaranteed annuity before annuitizing, or laddering CDs into an income purchase later. As a category, a bonus-and-rollup deferred income rider like this one tends to out-produce all three approaches for a given deferral period, because the 30% head start and the 9.5% compounding both apply well before a single dollar of income is paid.

The logic is straightforward even without plugging in today's numbers. An immediate annuity purchased at 65 with no deferral skips the bonus and the rollup entirely, so it starts from a smaller base. A multi-year guaranteed annuity followed by an immediate annuity purchase later grows at a fixed rate for its term, then converts to income at whatever payout rate is available at that future date, which means two separate market snapshots stack against you instead of one guaranteed schedule. A CD ladder followed by an annuity purchase carries the same two-snapshot exposure, plus annual income tax on interest along the way, something a deferred annuity avoids until money actually comes out. The gap between this structure and any of the three alternatives narrows the shorter your deferral period runs and widens the longer you wait, up to the rider's 12-year growth window. Because SPIA payout rates, MYGA rates and CD yields all move with the broader interest rate environment, ask for a current side-by-side quote rather than relying on any number that is not tied to today's rates.

The High Point 365 Select with Bonus rider, in detail

This optional rider is the reason most buyers choose New Heights Select 9 in the first place. Its mechanics:

• A 30% bonus to the income base at issue. A $100,000 deposit becomes a $130,000 income base immediately, before any index credit or time has passed.
• A guaranteed 9.5% compound annual increase to the income base. The growth keeps running for as long as 12 years, and it stops the moment you decide to start income, whichever comes sooner.
• A "highest value" reset. If your Daily Accumulation Value sets a new high at any point, even after income has started, the income base can reset upward to match it.
• A joint life election, which extends guaranteed income over both spouses' lives at a somewhat lower payout percentage.
• A 1.10% annual fee, taken from the contract value in quarterly installments.

The 30% bonus is the headline feature, since most competing riders offer either a smaller bonus in the 10% to 20% range or a longer rollup period with no bonus at all. Pairing a large bonus with a high guaranteed growth rate is what makes this rider's shorter-deferral numbers so competitive.

The rider without the bonus

Nationwide also sells a second option, the High Point 365 Select Lifetime Income rider, aimed at buyers planning a longer deferral. It skips the upfront bonus entirely and instead grows the income base by 1% a year for ten years, locks in automatically at each new high point the Daily Accumulation Value reaches, and charges a lower annual fee than the bonus version. For deferrals of ten years or less, the bonus rider tends to win on guaranteed income. Past twelve years the two structures move closer together, so it is worth pulling both illustrations before choosing.

What makes the underlying contract different

Even without either optional rider, two features set the New Heights Select chassis apart from a typical FIA.

Daily value tracking

Most fixed index annuities only credit interest once a strategy term ends, typically after one, two or five years. Take a withdrawal in the middle of a term on one of those contracts, and you forfeit whatever gain had accrued since the term began. Nationwide's Daily Accumulation Value instead tracks potential earnings every single day, so a withdrawal, including a required minimum distribution taken mid-term, still picks up the earnings accrued to that point. That level of daily tracking is uncommon among FIAs.

A one-time lock-in per term

Once during each strategy term, you can call Nationwide and lock in the current index value for any strategy you have elected. If an index is running well ahead partway through the term and you would rather bank that gain than risk a late pullback, this feature lets you do exactly that, and the locked value holds even if the index gives back ground before the term ends. For a retiree who wants some control over the timing of a crediting decision, this is a genuinely useful option.

Strategy choices

Up to 10 strategy options can be combined in a single contract. The menu spans a one-year S&P 500 strategy with a balanced-allocation design, a family of one-year S&P 500 strategies built around a risk-control approach, multi-year versions of the same benchmarks running on two or five-year terms, volatility-controlled indices with both domestic and global exposure, and a fixed account that pays a set declared rate, functioning much like a MYGA held inside the FIA. Spreading a deposit across several of these at once is one way to diversify crediting methods rather than betting everything on a single index or term length.

Every strategy's cap, participation rate or spread resets at each term and can change once the surrender period ends, so always confirm the current numbers with your strategist before allocating, or review our guide to FIA crediting methods for how those levers interact. We also track current rate movement on our fixed index annuity guide.

Death benefit and legacy options

For buyers more interested in leaving money behind than in guaranteed income, Nationwide offers two optional enhanced death benefit riders instead, though only one optional rider total can be attached to the contract.

• High Point Select Enhanced Death Benefit: pays the greater of the Highest Daily Accumulation Value or a Minimum Enhanced Death Benefit Value, which grows the premium at 4% a year until it reaches 200% of premium or the annuitant turns 80.
• High Point Select Enhanced Death Benefit with Purchase Payment Bonus: the same structure, plus an immediate bonus credited to both the contract value and the return-of-premium guarantee.

Without electing either rider, the standard death benefit already pays the greater of the Daily Accumulation Value or the surrender value, which is a solid baseline protection on its own. The optional versions are worth their cost mainly for buyers with a specific legacy goal in mind.

Withdrawals, surrender and liquidity

The 7% annual free withdrawal available throughout the surrender period is more generous than plenty of competing FIAs, which often cap free withdrawals at 5% to 10% and only after several contract years have passed.

Nationwide's financial strength

Nationwide sits in the upper tier of the life and annuity industry across all three agencies, just below the small group of A++ mutual carriers such as New York Life and MassMutual. For a buyer who wants strong, broadly agreed-upon financial strength behind a long-term income promise, these ratings clear a high bar. See our full Nationwide company review for ownership, history and the rest of its product lineup.

A rating measures the company's ability to pay claims, not whether a specific annuity fits your situation. Confirm the current rating on the agency's own site before signing anything.

Who should buy the New Heights Select 9?

This contract fits well for buyers who:

• Are pre-retirees, roughly age 55 to 65, planning to start guaranteed lifetime income in 5 to 12 years
• Have $50,000 to $1,000,000 of qualified or non-qualified money earmarked for future income
• Want carrier strength rated A+ or better across multiple agencies
• Are part of a couple who want a joint payout covering both spouses' lives
• Are comfortable committing to the full nine-year surrender period

It fits less well if you need full liquidity, are prioritizing legacy over income, might need the money before age 59 and a half, or are chasing the lowest possible fee, since a plain MYGA will always undercut a fee-bearing income rider if income is not your actual goal.

Other income annuities to consider

If New Heights Select 9 is on your list, these are worth comparing:

• Nationwide Peak 10: a sister product from the same carrier, built around a 25% bonus and an 8% simple roll-up instead of a compounding rate
• Nationwide: the full carrier profile, ownership history and product lineup
• Single premium immediate annuities: the no-deferral alternative worth pricing against any bonus-rider structure