Higher interest rates have consequences across the economy, from lending to investing. One industry is enjoying these long-term elevated rates: Annuity providers. Annuity sales to individuals hit a new annual record of $461.3 billion in 2025, a 6% increase over 2024, fueled in part by these higher rates.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) annuity sales add a new wrinkle to this revitalized annuity marketplace. While growth rates and guarantees still remain the primary drivers according to our survey work, online applications play a meaningful supporting role in the sales process. Over 60% of survey respondents indicated that the online application experience influenced their annuity purchasing decision, placing online applications among the most important non-financial factors. A best-in-class online application process can boost sales and attract new customers without changing the financial pitch.
To that end, CI’s annuity research team recently issued a report on D2C annuity applications, examining the online application processes from six firms: American National, Blueprint Income, Canvas Annuity, Gainbridge, Nassau Financial, and USAA.
Below we preview two firms profiled in this new report: Blueprint Income, the only firm to earn an Excellent rating in this research, and Nassau Financial, the only firm to offer a dedicated native mobile app for annuity applications.
The full report includes survey findings, best practices, and full firm reviews detailing each firm’s D2C annuity application processes.
Blueprint Income
Blueprint Income earned the only Excellent rating in this Annuity Monitor Report, delivering a fully digital, end-to-end annuity purchase experience. The firm supports a transparent product selection process and a structured, guided application that enables users to complete the entire journey online.
Structure and Navigation
Blueprint’s experience begins with a curated comparison table for filtering by state, term, crediting options, financial rating, funding source, age and additional features. From there, users move into a customization flow, where they enter investment amount, select term length, choose crediting options and index strategies, and allocate funds between indexed and fixed rate options. A confirmation screen summarizes selections before proceeding.
After customization, users must create an account before entering the formal application. Once inside the application, steps for Personal Information, Driver’s License, Beneficiaries, Financial Overview, Funding Source and Review display vertically, functioning as a progress meter. Completed steps receive checkmarks, and a separate percentage-based progress meter below the steps shows overall completion.
The Beneficiaries step presents as a dedicated stage within the structured progression, requiring users to enter beneficiary details and assign allocation percentages before advancing. This integration ensures beneficiary designation is completed as part of the core contract setup rather than deferred to post-submission documentation, reinforcing completeness prior to final review and signature.
Backward navigation and saving, editing and canceling functionality are available at any time. While the step structure is clear and sequential, some sections, particularly Financial Overview, contain a large volume of required inputs on a single page, requiring substantial scrolling.
Efficiency and Friction Points
Blueprint Income supports a fully digital application with saved progress, editable review sections and dynamic input fields that reduce rework. Required account creation after customization introduces an additional step before application entry, which may add minor friction for first-time users but enables continuity and progress saving. The primary friction point stems from the density of information required in certain steps, particularly Financial Overview and Suitability, where extensive inputs are presented on long, scroll-heavy pages. Despite this, the structured step sequence, visible progress indicators and comprehensive review functionality help maintain usability across a complex regulatory process while ensuring key contract elements such as beneficiary designation, funding source capture and suitability evaluation are completed prior to submission.
Nassau Financial
Nassau Financial stands out for providing a native mobile app specifically designed for its Simple Annuity application, an offering unique among firms in this report. Cross-channel consistency between the desktop version of the application and the mobile app version is impressive. The mobile app version includes everything available in the desktop version in addition to more expansive value-added features and, notably, a dedicated funding step.
Careful design choices effectively adapt the application to optimize its layout for mobile devices. A hamburger icon in the top right of the Dashboard screen generates a vertical slideout menu for the applicant to easily navigate between the Dashboard, application, and education and support resources. However, this navigation option does not extend to the application itself, with Next and Previous buttons being the only navigation options once the user begins the application. Further, interest rate charts on the Dashboard screen are viewable in widescreen mode, facilitating easier readability for applicants.
The value-added features exclusive to the mobile app are significant. The mobile app version includes a dedicated funding step where the applicant can choose to enter their bank account information or indicate their intention to use a physical check as the funding source, effectively incorporating the crucial step into the application flow. In comparison, the desktop application version is fragmented due to its lack of a dedicated funding step.
The same interest rate charts for T-Bills and T-Notes available on the desktop version are also available in the mobile app version, in addition to a range of other Treasury and economic data, including the following:
- Four-Year Simple Annuity compared to Bank CD rates
- Bank CD rates
- Money market rates
- Seven-year T-Notes
- 13-week T-Bills
- National deposit rates
- Unemployment rate
- Federal funds rate
- Real GDP rate
- Treasury securities market yield rates
A dedicated web browser window housing Nassau Financial’s public site Simple Annuity page is available within the mobile app, enabling applicants to review detailed product information without having to leave the app. Additionally, the capability to scan a driver’s license is available within the mobile app, saving applicants from having to enter their driver’s license data manually.
Contact Corporate Insight to learn how to access this report, as well as our full suite of annuity competitive intelligence research. And check out our Insights page for more on the latest trends across financial services, insurance and healthcare.
Andreas Tsiaras
Andreas Tsiaras is an analyst on CI's life insurance and annuity team.