EquiTrust Life Insurance Company is pleased to announce enhanced withdrawal capabilities from all indexed annuities.

To date, contract holders who wished to take a withdrawal from their contracts were limited to a pro-rata approach based on ALL of their current accounts. In other words, a withdrawal amount would be taken in proportion to how the Accumulation Value was distributed among the various accounts.

Now, contract holders may specify the accounts from which they would like the withdrawals or Required Minimum Distributions to be taken.

This new approach may be beneficial to those contract holders who have part of their Accumulation Value in the Two Year Averaging Account, because withdrawals from this account prior to the end of the two-year period result in the forfeiture of any interest credits on the amount withdrawn.

Here’s how it works. Assume a contract holder is allocated among three index accounts:

Account A: 20%
Account B: 20%
Account C: 60%

She wishes to take a 10% free withdrawal, but only from Accounts B and C. The withdrawal would be taken pro-rata from the two accounts as follows:

Account A: 0%
Account B: 25% 20% ÷ (20% + 60%) = 25%
Account C: 75% 60% ÷ (20% + 60%) = 75%

This is a feature that will be offered to all in-force and newly issued EquiTrust Life indexed annuities by company practice; this is not a contractual provision.

The revised Withdrawal Form (ET-2501) and Required Minimum Distribution form (ET-2512) are available at the Forms/Materials link.  

If you have any questions about the new withdrawal provisions, please call EquiTrust Life Sales Support at 866-598-3694.