Is Fidelity and Guaranty a Good Insurance Company?

F&G holds an AM Best financial strength rating of A (Excellent) — the third highest of 13 rating categories, reflecting AM Best’s assessment of excellent financial strength. F&G’s S&P rating is A-, the third highest of 11 S&P rating levels. Both agencies assign investment-grade ratings that position F&G in the competitive middle tier of annuity carriers — one notch below the A+ or AA ratings held by the largest mutual insurance companies, and meaningfully above the B-level ratings that represent the lower end of the marketplace. F&G’s NAIC Complaint Index of 0.10 indicates it receives significantly fewer complaints than the industry average of 1.00 — one of the cleaner complaint profiles in the annuity market relative to the carrier’s size. The company’s Risk-Based Capital ratio is approximately 430%, above its own 400% target, and 96% of its fixed maturity portfolio carries NAIC 1 or 2 designations — reflecting a conservatively positioned investment portfolio. These ratings support recommending F&G products with appropriate context about how the rating compares to higher-rated alternatives for very large or very long-duration contracts.

F&G Annuities & Life is a publicly traded company (NYSE: FG) that is majority-owned by Fidelity National Financial (NYSE: FNF), a Fortune 500 company and one of the nation’s largest title insurance and real estate transaction services providers. FNF acquired a majority stake in F&G in 2020 and retains approximately 70% equity ownership following a partial distribution to FNF shareholders. F&G has a strategic investment management partnership with Blackstone, which influences the portfolio strategies supporting its annuity crediting rates. As of December 31, 2025, F&G reported retained AUM of $57.6 billion and total AUM before flow reinsurance of $73 billion. Gross sales for full year 2025 were $14.6 billion across retail annuities, pension risk transfer, indexed universal life, and funding agreements. The company has served over 900,000 customers since its founding in 1959 and grew AUM from $26.5 billion at FNF acquisition to $57.6 billion retained by year-end 2025 — a 117% increase in five years. This institutional scale and Fortune 500 backing is a meaningful distinction from smaller independent insurance carriers.

F&G offers four primary annuity product categories. Multi-year guaranteed annuities (MYGAs) — including the Guarantee-Platinum series and Heritage+ products — provide guaranteed fixed interest rates across three, five, and seven-year terms with a 10% annual free withdrawal provision and tax-deferred accumulation. F&G MYGAs consistently rank among the most competitive rates in the market for three-to-seven-year terms, which is the primary reason the carrier appears frequently in independent agent and consumer rate comparisons. Fixed indexed annuities (FIAs) — including the Safe Income series and Prosperity Elite products — offer indexed growth potential through multiple crediting strategies, principal protection from negative index performance, and optional guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit riders for clients whose objective is lifetime income. Single premium immediate annuities (SPIAs) and deferred income annuities (DIAs) are also available for clients who want to convert a lump sum directly into a guaranteed income stream without the index growth component. The product lineup covers accumulation, income, and protection objectives, which is one reason F&G appears across multiple client planning scenarios rather than serving only one narrow retirement planning application. Our resource on how annuity income is calculated covers the mechanics that determine the guaranteed income amount from both FIA income riders and immediate annuity structures.

F&G’s AM Best A rating is one category below the A+ (Superior) ratings held by the largest mutual insurance companies — Northwestern Mutual, Guardian, New York Life, and MassMutual. In practical terms, the significance of this difference depends heavily on the contract size and duration. For most retail annuity contracts in the three-to-seven-year term range and below $250,000, the practical difference between an A and A+ carrier is modest — state guaranty association protections (typically $250,000 per carrier per annuitant in most states) provide a meaningful safety net that largely insulates moderate-sized contracts from the incremental financial strength difference. The rate differential F&G often offers versus higher-rated carriers in the MYGA market can represent genuine additional yield — on a $200,000 five-year MYGA, a 25-basis-point rate advantage is $500 per year or $2,500 over the term. For very large contracts above $500,000, very long surrender periods (ten or more years), or lifetime income annuities that must pay for several decades, some advisors and clients prefer the additional margin of safety that A+ ratings provide. Neither position is universally correct — the right answer is context-specific, which is why an independent multi-carrier comparison is more useful than any single-carrier assessment. Our resource on best annuity rates covers the current competitive rate environment across carrier tiers.

F&G has consistently been among the most competitively priced MYGA carriers in the market for three-to-seven-year terms, which reflects the company’s deliberate strategy of competing on rate in the guaranteed-yield segment of the annuity market. The combination of F&G’s investment partnership with Blackstone, its Fortune 500 institutional capital backing from FNF, and its scale — over $57 billion in retained AUM with 96% investment-grade fixed maturities — allows it to pursue competitive rate positioning while maintaining adequate capital ratios. The Guarantee-Platinum series and Heritage+ MYGA products offer locked guaranteed rates for the full contract term with a 10% annual free withdrawal provision — a standard and competitive liquidity feature that allows access to a portion of contract value without surrender charges in most contract years. For clients comparing a guaranteed MYGA to bank CD alternatives, the combination of F&G’s competitive rates, tax-deferred accumulation status (interest is not taxed until withdrawal), and A-rated financial strength makes it a meaningful consideration. Our resource on fixed annuities versus CDs covers the direct comparison between guaranteed annuity products and bank deposit instruments.

F&G’s fixed indexed annuity products — particularly the Safe Income series — are designed for clients who want both indexed growth potential during the accumulation phase and a guaranteed lifetime income stream during retirement. The FIA earns interest based on the performance of an external index (commonly the S&P 500) subject to contract-specified limits — caps, participation rates, or spreads — that apply to each crediting strategy. Principal is protected from negative index performance: in years when the index declines, the account value does not lose value from index performance, though rider fees do reduce account value annually. The income component is structured through an optional guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit (GLWB) rider, which accumulates an income base separately from the account value. The income base typically grows at a defined rate during the deferral period, and then generates a guaranteed annual withdrawal amount at the time income begins — typically a percentage of the income base that varies by age at activation. The income continues for life regardless of account value depletion. Understanding the difference between the account value (which fluctuates with credited interest and rider fees) and the income base (which grows on a defined schedule specifically for income calculation) is essential to evaluating any FIA income rider design. Our resource on how to get an annuity for retirement income covers the income planning process in detail.

Yes — without exception. No annuity purchase decision should be based on a single carrier’s product offering, regardless of how competitive that carrier’s rate appears. A rate comparison that reveals F&G is offering a more competitive MYGA rate than Carrier A is meaningfully incomplete if it does not also evaluate Carrier B’s product, which may offer a superior income rider design; Carrier C, which may have a stronger rating; or Carrier D, which may offer better liquidity provisions. The specific comparison that matters is the one that evaluates F&G’s current product — including rate, crediting methods, income rider design, surrender schedule, liquidity provisions, and financial strength — against the current offerings of the two to four carriers that most directly compete for the same client profile. An independent multi-carrier comparison also determines whether a different product structure (guaranteed fixed rate instead of indexed, or SPIA instead of a deferred income rider) might better serve the specific retirement income goal at hand. Our resource on getting a second opinion on your annuity quote initiates this multi-carrier comparison for clients who have already received an F&G quote and want to benchmark it against the broader market. Our resources on American Equity, North American, Athene, and Allianz provide the parallel carrier assessments for the most common competitive alternatives.

F&G’s standard annuity lineup focuses on accumulation and income rather than long-term care benefit riders — making F&G primarily a retirement income and savings carrier rather than a hybrid LTC carrier. For clients whose planning objective includes both guaranteed retirement income and long-term care benefit protection through a single contract structure, the market has several hybrid annuity/LTC products from other carriers that specifically combine an income-producing annuity with LTC benefit acceleration features. Our resources on annuities with long-term care benefits, non-qualified long-term care annuities, and fixed annuities with long-term care benefits cover the hybrid product category and which carriers are most competitive in that specific structure. For clients evaluating F&G for income purposes while planning separately for long-term care through a traditional or hybrid LTC insurance product, our resource on long-term care insurance services covers those options alongside the annuity income floor strategy.