2025 Annuity Trends: The Fixed-Indexed Annuity Shines

The annuity industry experiences fresh waves of innovation each year, but 2025 stands out for the noticeably higher volume and pace of product launches. Leading that charge is the fixed-indexed annuity (FIA), a product that offers policyholders both security and growth potential. FIAs are unique among the common annuity types, offering fully guaranteed protection of principal—this is the “fixed” part—and generating returns linked to the performance of a market index—this is where the “indexed” label comes in. This gives customers a way to capture upside without full exposure to market risk and volatility.

These products are having a moment in 2025. Recent data uncovered by Wink’s Sales & Market Report shows that annuity issuers have released 96 new FIA products through the end of the third quarter—marking a 35% increase over 2024 and totaling over $125.5 billion for the year. This growth reflects not only rising consumer demand but also heightened competition among insurers to both promote and differentiate their products.

Within the Corporate Insight Annuity Monitor coverage set, five firms had launched new FIA products through September of 2025. By contrast, in 2024 only one firm in the set—Allianz Life—introduced a FIA, the Accumulation Advantage+.

• Allianz Life in 2025 released new versions of its top-selling FIAs—Benefit Control+ and Allianz 222+—with extra enhancements unavailable in the non + version of the product. These include a new Income Flex Benefit for earlier access to annuity value, crediting options like the 1-Year Highest Daily Value and Performance Trigger and expanded indexing choices. Core features such as Index Lock remain in place—which allows clients to set a permanent index value on an indexed allocation at any time during crediting—helping clients manage inflation and market risk.
• Other notable launches include Nationwide and Midland National’s partnership on the Capital Income Annuity, a commission-free FIA tailored for fee-based advisors, which offers a built-in withdrawal benefit and an ADL Benefit Rider that doubles payments under qualifying health conditions.
• Meanwhile, Jackson introduced the Income Assurance suite, featuring embedded Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefits an 8% annual roll-up, a 30% first-year premium bonus and flexible S&P 500–based crediting strategies.

• Next, Pacific Life stood out by unveiling two different FIAs at the same time: Pacific Index Foundation 2 and Pacific Index Income, which offer customizable rate-locking options, enhanced death benefits, and built-in lifetime income growth tools.
• New York Life introduced the IndexFlex, which combines principal protection with growth potential. The IndexFlex also offers a “rate-for-term” design that locks in a performance limit and 0% floor for either a 5- or 7-year term.
• Lastly, while this firm did not launch a new annuity product, Athene made adjustments to its Accumulator and Protector FIAs to improve usability for both financial professionals and clients. Updates include Preset Allocations in the Accumulator line to simplify diversification, a refined index lineup and updated crediting strategies in the Protector products, and new rider options—changes designed to make protection-focused features easier to understand for clients.

By taking a detailed look at how these products are structured and promoted to prospective clients reveals patterns in market strategy and digital customer experience that hint at where the annuity market—and its consumers—are heading next. A simple and clear trend is emerging, yet its importance cannot be understated: Issuers are designing FIAs that combine growth potential with flexibility, responding to the evolving needs of retirees and advisors. The industry clearly recognizes that striking this delicate balance is critical to meeting growing client expectations in today’s financially turbulent landscape as costs of living across the country and the retirement age continue to rise—patterns that Corporate Insight continues to track through our dynamic market research.

Issuers are designing FIAs that combine growth potential with flexibility, responding to the evolving needs of retirees and advisors.

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