North American Income Pay Pro 10 Annuity Review (2026)

Is the North American Income Pay Pro 10 worth it?

North American Company for Life and Health Insurance, part of Sammons Financial Group and rated A+ by AM Best, issues Income Pay Pro 10 as a single-premium fixed index annuity that folds a lifetime withdrawal guarantee straight into the contract. Most competitors sell that kind of rider as an optional add-on. Here it comes standard: a built-in guarantee that compounds an 8% credit onto your income account every year for a decade, funded by a 1.15% yearly charge.

Someone shopping in their late fifties or early sixties, planning on roughly a decade before touching the money, will find the resulting payout numbers stack up well against most other A-rated indexed contracts on the market right now.

Three layers make up the contract, and they are worth separating in your head. The base chassis is a standard indexed annuity with a 10-year surrender schedule and several crediting strategies to choose from. The embedded rider sits on top of that chassis and is the reason most people buy this specific product: it is what turns a lump sum into a guaranteed paycheck later. And behind both of those stands the carrier itself, North American, a privately held insurer under Sammons Financial Group with a long operating history and top-tier ratings across the board.

If you are new to how fixed index annuities work in general, start with our fixed index annuity guide first; this review assumes you already understand the basics and focuses on what sets Income Pay Pro 10 apart.

How the 8% roll-up builds your income base

The GLWB value is not your cash value and you cannot withdraw it as a lump sum. It exists purely as the number North American uses to calculate your eventual guaranteed paycheck, and it starts at 100% of your premium the day the contract is issued.

From there, the mechanics are simple to follow, and they do not depend on how any index performs. Each year, for up to 10 years or until you actually turn on lifetime payments, whichever happens first, the GLWB value grows by 8% compounded on the prior year's balance. Run that math on a $100,000 premium: $100,000 multiplied by 1.08 raised to the 10th power comes out to roughly $215,900 after a full decade of compounding.

Turning on income means North American takes that balance and multiplies it by a payout percentage set by your age and the payout structure you pick. The result becomes a fixed check that arrives for the rest of your life, no matter how long that turns out to be or what the market does along the way.

Here is the distinction that catches people off guard: your real cash position, the amount available to surrender or leave behind, follows the actual performance of whichever index strategies you selected, not the compounding schedule above. It will almost always sit lower than the income-account number, precisely because that number climbs on a fixed, market-proof timetable. Plug your own age, deposit and waiting period into our income rider calculator to see how the two figures diverge over time.

The rider fee, and why the dollar cost keeps climbing

Funding that guarantee costs 1.15% a year, charged against the rising income-account balance rather than your actual cash value, which means the invoice grows even though the percentage never budges. Take roughly $100,000 in year 1 and about $215,900 by year 10, apply 1.15% to each, and the bill has more than doubled in dollar terms over the decade despite the rate staying flat the whole time.

North American takes this charge annually no matter whether you have flipped the income switch yet, pulling it straight from your real cash value, which is a large part of why that cash figure ends up so far behind the income-account total by the time the deferral period wraps up. Someone who follows through and starts lifetime payments gets real value for every dollar of that charge. Someone who cashes out early paid for a guarantee they never collected on.

Level or Increasing payments

When the moment comes to start collecting, you have two payout shapes to pick between.

Which one wins in total dollars depends heavily on how long you end up collecting. Level tends to produce more lifetime income for someone who activates later, around a typical retirement age, and lives an average life expectancy from there. Increasing can catch up and pass Level after a decade or more of payments, which makes it more attractive to a younger buyer who expects a longer payout horizon. Since the crossover point moves with your specific age and health expectations, it is worth running both scenarios rather than guessing.

The nursing home multiplier: a built-in care benefit

This is one of the stronger long-term-care-style features available on a fixed index annuity, and it does not require underwriting or a separate premium the way a standalone long-term care policy does. Land in a qualifying nursing care center for a stretch longer than 90 straight days, with that stay starting no sooner than your third contract year, and your usual annual payment gets credited at twice its size for that year.

The doubled payment is capped at 5 total occurrences over the life of the contract, and those 5 years do not have to run back to back. You have to own the contract at least 2 years before you can request the benefit, your accumulation value has to be above zero, and the feature is not offered to California owners. For a buyer worried about the cost of a future care event but reluctant to pay for a separate policy that could go unused, this multiplier is a meaningful reason to consider Income Pay Pro 10 over a competing income rider that lacks it.

The LPA reserve: banking income you do not spend

Once lifetime payments begin, you are not required to take the full amount every year. Whatever portion of your Lifetime Payment Amount you choose not to take gets credited to a reserve account instead, which you can later withdraw as a lump sum or in additional installments, up to the size of your accumulation value.

Plenty of competing riders operate on a use-it-or-lose-it basis, where declining a payment simply erases that year's income for good. Here, someone who does not want to spend the entire check right away can stockpile the difference and pull a bigger sum out later, whether that means a big trip, an unexpected medical bill, or writing a check toward a grandchild's tuition.

Index crediting options

Income Pay Pro 10 lets you spread your premium across several indexed crediting strategies plus a fixed account, rather than locking you into one formula. Available choices include the S&P 500, the Barclays Transitions 6 VC and Barclays Transitions 12 VC indexes, Fidelity Multifactor Yield 5% ER, Goldman Sachs Equity TimeX, Morgan Stanley Dynamic Global, and S&P MARC 5% Excess Return, alongside a fixed account with its own declared rate.

Reallocating is possible too: one-year strategies open up for changes on each anniversary, while the two-year strategies only free up once every other anniversary. Whatever cap or participation rate applies to a given strategy resets every time a new term starts, and the whole crediting menu is subject to change once the surrender period is behind you, so pull a fresh rate sheet from the quote box on this page before locking in new money anywhere.

Death benefit and spousal continuance

Whoever inherits this contract gets whichever is bigger, your accumulation value or the guaranteed minimum surrender value, with any state premium tax owed subtracted first. One point deserves repeating because it surprises people: the compounding income-account figure plays no part in that calculation. Say the rider has pushed the income base up to $215,900 while the real accumulation value sits at $180,000. Your beneficiaries collect $180,000, full stop.

Married couples have an option worth understanding before they apply. Setting the contract up with both spouses as joint covered persons lets the survivor keep collecting the Lifetime Payment Amount at the joint payout percentage after the first death. Setting it up with a single covered person instead means that if the owner dies before turning on income, the surviving spouse can re-establish the rider using their own issue age, rather than inheriting the original owner's terms.

Withdrawals, surrender charges and liquidity

Being able to pull 10% out penalty-free from day one beats a lot of the competition, where several contracts hold owners to required-minimum-distribution-only access during the opening years. The surrender charge schedule that applies in most states, including Arizona, runs 10%, 10%, 9%, 9%, 8%, 8%, 7%, 6%, 4% and 2% across the ten years, dropping to zero from year 11 onward. Schedules can differ by state, so confirm the exact numbers for where you live before applying.

North American's financial strength

You are trusting this carrier to keep a guaranteed rider promise decades into the future, so its claims-paying strength matters as much as any single product feature.

North American operates under Sammons Financial Group, a privately held parent that also owns Midland National. Because Sammons answers to private ownership rather than public shareholders chasing quarterly results, the group has historically leaned toward steadier crediting behavior and a longer planning horizon than some publicly traded competitors. North American itself has been writing policies for well over a century. For the carrier's full history and product lineup, see our North American company review.

Who should buy Income Pay Pro 10?

Picture a pre-retiree somewhere between 50 and 70, sitting on $50,000 to $1,000,000 or more of qualified or non-qualified savings, who wants a guaranteed check to start within roughly the next five to ten years or beyond. That is the core buyer here. The contract also appeals to people who put real weight on a top-tier balance sheet, married couples drawn to the spousal continuance protection, and anyone worried about a future care expense who would rather not pay for a stand-alone long-term care policy just in case.

It is a weaker fit for someone who needs full liquidity, who is more focused on maximizing what gets left to heirs than on income for themselves, who might need the money before age 59 and a half, or who simply wants the lowest-cost contract available and has no interest in an income guarantee. A plain MYGA will almost always cost less if income is not the objective.

How Income Pay Pro 10 compares

Inside North American's own lineup, Income Pay Pro 10 is the income-focused counterpart to the accumulation-oriented Charter Plus 10, which offers a larger upfront bonus and a deeper index menu but carries no income rider at all. Buyers who are torn between growth and income should compare the two side by side before choosing either.

Against the broader market, Income Pay Pro 10 competes most directly with other 10-year, income-rider fixed index annuities from similarly rated carriers. We have put together a direct Athene Ascent Pro 10 versus North American Income Pay Pro 10 comparison that walks through how a compounding roll-up structure like this one stacks up against a bonus-plus-simple-roll-up design. The honest takeaway across most head-to-head comparisons in this category is that the gap between well-rated income riders is often modest enough that carrier preference, surrender terms and features like the nursing home multiplier end up deciding it more than the headline roll-up number alone.

Tax Free Wealth Plan is a licensed independent insurance agency, appointed with 25 companies, and we are not tied to any single carrier's numbers. Give us your age, deposit and deferral window and we will run Income Pay Pro 10 next to a couple of other well-rated income riders so the guaranteed figures sit side by side for you.