Pacific Life At a Glance: Rates, Products and Reviews

Today’s Best Pacific Life Annuity Rates

Term	Product	AM Best Rating	Rate
5 Years	Pacific Harbor	A+	5.00%
3 Years	Pacific Harbor	A+	4.75%
7 Years	Mariner	A+	4.65%

Compare Pacific Life Annuity Rates

Additional Products Offered by Pacific Life

Pacific Life’s annuity products represent all the major types of annuities: fixed, indexed, variable, immediate and deferred income annuities.

Pacific Life’s Fixed Annuities

Pacific Life offers two fixed annuities: Pacific Expedition^® 2 and Pacific Harbor.

• Pacific Expedition^® 2 is a fixed annuity with three-year, five-year and seven-year guarantee periods. The product earns different interest rates depending on if the purchase payment is less or more than $100,000. Owners can withdraw 10% of their contract value annually without penalty.
• Pacific Harbor is a multi-year guaranteed annuity (MYGA) with three-year and five-year guarantee periods. This annuity has a $25,000 minimum premium and earns a different rate for premiums of $200,000 or more. Pacific Harbor does not impose withdrawal charges but does apply a market value adjustment (MVA) to withdrawals.

Pacific Life’s Indexed Annuities

All of Pacific Life’s indexed annuities have a $25,000 minimum premium and no annual contract, mortality & expense (M&E), or administrative fees. The Pacific Index Advisory^® and the Pacific Advisory Fixed Indexed Annuity are available to consumers working with fee-based financial professionals. 

• Pacific Index Foundation^® has interest rates and index crediting caps that are guaranteed for the surrender charge period. This annuity has five different interest crediting options. Additional benefits can be added for a fee, including an enhanced lifetime income benefit and enhanced death benefit.
• Pacific Index Edge has many of the same features as the Index Foundation^®, such as five interest crediting options and enhanced benefits available for purchase. But instead of guaranteed interest rates and index caps, the Index Edge locks in earned interest each year.
• Pacific Index Advisory^® offers the same amount of interest crediting options and guarantees interest rates and index caps for the entire guarantee period. This annuity offers the enhanced death benefit at an additional charge but does not offer an enhanced lifetime income benefit.
• Pacific Advisory Fixed Indexed Annuity has no withdrawal charges, similar to the Pacific Harbor MYGA. Instead of withdrawal charges, this indexed annuity imposes an MVA on withdrawals made within the five-year initial option period.

Pacific Life’s Variable Annuities

Pacific Life sells five variable annuity products; two of these annuities, the Pacific Advisory Variable Annuity and the Pacific Odyssey^®, are available to investors working with a fee-based financial professional.

• Pacific Choice^® is the most basic of the variable annuities, featuring automatic asset rebalancing, lifetime income options and no withdrawal charges after five years. Fees for this product include a 0.95% M&E fee, a 0.25% administrative fee and a $50 annual contract fee. Pacific Choice^® requires a $10,000 minimum initial premium and a $250 minimum for subsequent purchase payments. 
• Pacific Choice^® 2 has a five-year withdrawal charge schedule and enhanced beneficiary options available for an extra cost. The M&E fee for this annuity is reduced for larger contracts: the fee is 0.85% for contracts valued below $500,000; 0.80% for contract values between $500,000 and $1 million; and 0.75% for contracts valued over $1 million. Pacific Choice^® 2 requires a $10,000 minimum initial premium and a $250 minimum for subsequent purchase payments. 
• Pacific Choice Income^® has a seven-year withdrawal charge schedule and is designed for lifetime income through enhanced income benefits that can be purchased at an additional cost. Fees for this annuity include a 0.90% M&E fee, 0.25% administrative fee and a $50 annual contract fee. Pacific Choice Income^® requires a $10,000 minimum initial premium and a $250 minimum for subsequent purchase payments.
• Pacific Odyssey^® has automatic asset rebalancing, optional living benefits and no surrender or withdrawal charges. The fees for this annuity include a 0.15% M&E fee and a 0.15% administrative fee. Pacific Odyssey requires a $25,000 minimum initial premium and a $250 minimum for subsequent purchase payments.
• Pacific Advisory Variable Annuity also has no surrender or withdrawal charges. This annuity does charge expense fees for each investment option included in the annuity’s portfolio; these charges range from 0.03% to 1.13%. Additional fees for this annuity include a 0.30% M&E fee and a 0.15% investment platform fee.

Pacific Life’s Immediate Annuity

Pacific Income Provider^® is Pacific Life’s single premium immediate annuity (SPIA).​ This annuity has a minimum purchase payment of $25,000 and payout options including single life, joint life, joint and survivor life, and period certain up to 30 years.

Income Provider^® annuities can be customized with one of two optional features. The first is the future adjustment option, which triggers a one-time increase or decrease in payments in anticipation of a specific event. The second option is an inflation protection feature that increases payments annually by 2%, 3% or 4%. Either option must be selected when the contract is issued.

Pacific Life’s Deferred Income Annuity

Pacific Secure Income^® is Pacific Life’s flexible premium deferred income annuity with a minimum initial premium of $15,000. Customers can build their income stream over time through multiple purchase payments and choose an income start date between 13 months after the latest purchase payment and 30 years after the contract is issued.

This deferred income annuity offers payout options including single life, joint life, joint and survivor life, and period certain up to 30 years. Owners can also choose to add an inflation protection feature to increase payments by 2%, 3% or 4% each year.

Pacific Secure Income^® is not available in California, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania or Texas.

About Pacific Life

Pacific Life was originally founded as Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of California in 1868. After starting in Sacramento, the company eventually relocated its headquarters to its current location in Newport Beach in 1972.

Today, Pacific Life sells insurance and annuities in 49 states plus the District of Columbia. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners reported that in 2022, Pacific Life sold over $9 billion in individual annuity premiums, commanding a 3.27% share of the U.S. annuity market. 

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.

Pacific Life’s Credit Ratings

Rating Company	Credit Rating
AM Best	A+
Fitch	AA-
S&P	AA-

What Customers Are Saying About Pacific Life

Pacific Life has a relatively positive reputation for customer service. The provider ranked fourth in J.D. Power’s 2023 Customer Satisfaction Index Ranking, which measured the customer satisfaction of the top 16 annuity providers. 

Pacific Life has received very few customer complaints in recent years. According to the NAIC, Pacific Life had just two annuity customer complaints reported to state insurance commissions in 2022, as well as two complaints in 2021 and two in 2020.

The NAIC tracks consumer complaints each state’s insurance commission receives each year. These are used to compile a company’s NAIC Complaint Index.NAIC 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 Pacific Life

All Policy Types	0.01
Individual Annuities Only	0.16

Pacific Life Pros & Cons

Pacific Life is a major annuity provider with a strong reputation and various products. But that doesn’t mean this provider will be right for every annuity customer. Be sure to consider the pros and cons of any provider before purchasing an annuity.

Pros

• Variety of annuity products: Pacific Life’s annuity offerings cover all the major types of annuities.
• Annuities with no withdrawal charges: Some of its annuities, like the Pacific Harbor fixed annuity or the Advisory Fixed Indexed Annuity, have no withdrawal or surrender charges.
• Highly customizable: Pacific Life includes customizable features and optional riders on many of their annuity products. Annuity agent Ryan Cicchelli told Annuity.org, “The rider products are really nice. They offer options like a death benefit, income or for your annuity to do something specific.”
• Wide availability: Pacific Life sells annuities in 49 states plus the District of Columbia.
• Strong financial stability and customer service ratings: Pacific Life scored well on industry metrics for financial strength and customer satisfaction.

Cons

• High minimum premiums: Many of Pacific Life’s annuities have minimum premiums as high as $25,000, whereas some competitors offer a similar product with minimum premiums of $10,000 or even $5,000.
• Expensive rider fees: Cicchelli said that while Pacific Life’s riders are useful, “their rider fees are actually higher than industry average.”

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.