The Best Rates in Twenty Years
If you have ever considered an annuity, the current moment is about as favorable as it gets on paper. The 30-year Treasury yield printed 5.23% on August 24, 2026, the highest since 2007, after sitting between 2% and 3% in 2020 and 2021. Because insurers back annuity payouts with long-duration government and corporate bonds, the payouts they can quote have climbed in lockstep.
Competition is also doing some of the work. Annuity businesses built by asset managers like Apollo and Brookfield have grown fast and offered richer payouts, forcing traditional insurers to keep up. The result is a genuinely competitive market for buyers who know what they are looking at.
“Best Rate” Is a Slippery Phrase
The trap is that “best rate” is ambiguous. An annuity quote can be an interest rate or a payout rate, and they mean different things. A multi-year guaranteed annuity, or MYGA, quotes an interest rate on intact principal. An income annuity quotes a payout rate that includes the return of your own principal. We unpack that distinction fully in our annuity vs bond explainer.
Eagle Financial’s “10.3% War Bond” is the payout-rate kind. On a $200,000 lump sum, a couple both aged 69 would receive about $1,725 a month, roughly 10.3%, but only by deferring about five years to age 74. Immediate income would be roughly $1,250 a month, about 7.5%. The “best” number depends entirely on whether you can afford to wait.
The Three Questions That Reveal the Real Rate
When you shop, ask three questions of every quote. First, is this immediate or deferred, and how much does the payout shrink if I take income now? Second, is this life only, and what does a period certain or cash refund rider do to the number? Third, is this an interest rate or a payout rate, and how many years of checks before I have simply received my own principal back?
These questions strip the marketing away. The advertised figures for older buyers are higher for a reason: the insurer expects to make fewer payments. A 73-year-old woman’s $1,926 a month, roughly 11.6%, requires about a four-year deferral to age 77, and immediate income would be about $1,475 a month, roughly 8.9%. Age and deferral, not a special deal, are doing the work.
Commissions Hide in the Quote
Annuities are sold, not bought, and the sales channel takes a cut. Plain income annuities typically carry a 1% to 4% commission, while complex fixed-index and variable annuities run 4% to 7%. The promo’s “no bankers, no brokers, no Wall Street middlemen” line is misleading; the agent selling the contract is the middleman, and the cost is embedded in the rate you are quoted.
For context on how these payouts compare to the fixed-rate alternatives available right now, see our highest annuity interest rates and income annuity rates pieces.
Inflation Is the Unadvertised Line Item
Almost no income annuity offers an inflation adjustment, and the few that do cut the starting income sharply. A fixed $1,725 a month in 2031 buys less than it does today. A “best rate” that is locked in nominal dollars is still losing purchasing power every year, and that erosion is rarely on the first page of the pitch.
The Bottom Line
Rates are genuinely attractive right now, driven by 5% Treasury yields and real competition. But the best rate for you is not the biggest number in an ad; it is the one that survives honest questions about deferral, payout versus interest, riders, commissions, and inflation. Read the quote, then decide.
Who Is Behind the Pitch
Behind the promotion is Generational Wealth Strategies, a newsletter edited by Todd Phillips. Phillips runs Phillips Financial Services and its Estate Planning Specialists subsidiary, a firm founded by his father, Dave Phillips, which gives the pitch a real estate-planning pedigree rather than a Wall Street one. The ad copywriter is Roger Michalski, and the newsletter sells for $99.95 in the first year with a 30-day refund. These are legitimate, nameable people, not a faceless operation, and the framing still turns an insurance product into a “War Bond.”
Shop It Like a Professional
The cleanest way to find a genuinely good rate is to get quotes from multiple insurers for the same age, gender, deferral, and rider, then compare the guaranteed payouts apples to apples. Ask for the immediate income figure alongside the deferred figure so you can see exactly what waiting buys you. And ask the agent to state the commission and the surrender terms in writing. A rate is only as good as the contract wrapped around it.
Ready to see the research? Click here to access Todd Phillips’s report.
NewsletterVetter is an independent publication. We receive compensation from some of the services we review through affiliate links. Nothing on this site is investment advice. Always do your own research.