Prudential
Our Take
Prudential offers the stability and financial security that comes with a massive organization. But its annuity offerings are a tad limited and don’t always match up to some of its key competitors.
Pros
- Strong and financially stable company
Cons
- Scores below industry average in customer satisfaction
- Somewhat limited annuity options
Products Offered by Prudential
Prudential offers a handful of annuities that are of either the variable, fixed index or MYGA varieties. The information it offers on its annuities varies significantly across products, which can make it difficult to directly compare them.
Variable Annuities
One of Prudential’s main variable annuity offerings is the Prudential FlexGuard®. As its name implies, it is designed to be a flexible product that you can mold to fit your needs.
It is available with a minimum of $25,000 and a maximum of $5 million and is offered in term lengths of one year, three years or six years.
The available strategy is point-to-point cap rate and you can choose buffers of 10% or 20%. The annuity offers access to three different indexes, including the ability to work with ETFs.
Prudential FlexGuard Indexes
- S&P 500
- MSCI EAFE
- iShare Russell 2000 ETF
Other variable annuities available through Prudential include Prudential Premier®, which is an investment variable annuity, and Prudential MyRock®, which offers a lifetime income option.
Fixed Index Annuities
Fixed index annuities are among the most common products available through annuity providers, and Prudential has a presence in this space.
They offer PruSecure®, which can help customers experience growth while still maintaining protection against downturns and potential loss.
PruSecure is available with a surrender period of five or seven years, offering both fixed-rate and indexed-base strategies.
MYGAs
Prudential sells a MYGA as well, which is known as the Prudential WealthGuard℠.
Fixed annuities tend to be more simple than other types of annuities and the WealthGuard is a straightforward and standard product.
It offers term lengths of three, five or seven years.
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About Prudential
Annuities are just one piece of a major financial institution when it comes to Prudential. The company traces its origins back to the 1800s and is one of the main entities in the United States financial space.
As with many other major conglomerates, Prudential is divided into many smaller companies and entities. Its annuities are issued through Pruco Life Insurance. The company sells more in annuity premiums than many of the other smaller companies in the industry.
Prudential’s overall annuity offerings went through a big shift in 2021 when former subsidiary Jackson National demerged to become its own independent company.
Jackson National sells its own annuities that tend to have more information readily available and also more total options than Prudential.
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Credit Ratings
Credit ratings for annuity providers can help determine a company’s financial strength and stability — an indication that it will be around to guarantee payments to you in the future. Different rating companies use different scales.
Prudential’s Credit Ratings
| Rating Company | Credit Rating |
| AM Best | A+ |
| Fitch | AA- |
| S&P | AA- |
See which annuity providers our independent editorial team ranked as the Best Annuity Companies of 2024.
What Customers Are Saying About Prudential
It can be hard for companies as wide-spanning as Prudential to avoid some level of negative reviews or interactions simply given the size of the company, and Prudential is no exception.
The overall company holds a high NAIC Complaint Index score for annuities.
According to J.D. Power, the company’s customer satisfaction for annuities may be trending in the wrong direction. In the 2022 edition of the J.D. Power Overall Customer Satisfaction Index, Prudential received a customer satisfaction score that cleared most of its competitors.
But that score dipped below the industry average in 2023, with Prudential coming in behind competitors like Lincoln Financial or MassMutual.
Annuity.org also spoke with multiple financial professionals who are not overly enthused with Prudential’s annuity choices.
“Prudential has some interesting annuities. I have quoted them independently,” Federal Retirement Advisor Ken Orenstein said. “They look decent, but they’re nothing wonderful.”
The financial strength that comes with purchasing an annuity through a company as large as Prudential is nothing to scoff at. But it may not be enough to outweigh all other potential concerns.
“Prudential is very, very financially sound. But they look more like a corporate setup company,” Ryan Cicchelli, owner of The Safe Investing Expert, said. “They work with corporate entities that have higher fees and they don’t offer a wide range of plans. The [annuites] they do offer are complicated. And they don’t have very high customer service ratings.”
The [annuites] they do offer are complicated. And they don’t have very high customer service ratings.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) tracks consumer complaints that each state’s insurance commission receives each year. These are used to compile a company’s NAIC Complaint IndexNAIC Complaint IndexDetermined by dividing the company’s share of complaints in the U.S. market by the company’s share of premiums in the U.S. market. The National Complaint Index is always 1.00, so a score of 2.00, for example, is twice as high as expected in the market..
NAIC Complaint Index for Prudential
| All Policy Types | 0.39 |
| Individual Annuities Only | 62.11 |
Prudential Pros & Cons
The biggest pro of working with Prudential may be the stability that comes with opting to buy an annuity from such a large provider. Simply put, the company is massive.
There would be no concerns about the long-term viability of your purchase.
But numerous drawbacks are also worthy of consideration. For a major corporation, Prudential does not have the most diverse group of annuities.
The readily available information also varies wildly from product to product. You may need to work with an agent to get the full picture of the product you are interested in, which can make quick comparisons difficult.
Multiple agents that Annuity.org spoke to when evaluating annuity providers were also far from wowed when it came to the products available through Prudential.
Annuities are customizable products and one choice isn’t automatically the right fit for everyone. You may find an annuity that checks all the boxes through Prudential. But the cons outlined may be an issue for some customers.
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Provider Rating Methodology
Annuity.org created a fact-based methodology to analyze the strength, security and reach of different annuity providers. We assessed companies based on their availability, the amount of direct premiums sold, their AM Best Financial Strength Rating and their NAIC Complaint Index score.
Providers received a rating on a five-star scale for each of these categories, with the complaint index and financial strength ratings weighed as the heaviest variables. Then, using a weighted average, each company was assigned an overall star rating.
Annuity.org’s Top-Ranked Providers
| Provider | Annuity.org Star Rating |
| Mass Mutual |  |
| New York Life | |
| Pacific Life | |
| Midland National | |
| North American | |
| Western & Southern | |
Our Rating Panel
The Annuity.org editorial team spoke with several different annuity experts to learn more about what is important to customers when searching for a provider and what factors make a company reliable. While Annuity.org designed the methodology, these experts provided feedback during the process and consulted on what factors we should leverage to best help prospective buyers compare providers.
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