Annuity Rates in 2026: What's Driving Them and What to Watch

Rates Don't Move on Their Own Schedule

One of the most common questions is simply "are rates good right now?" The honest answer is that it depends on when you're asking and against what benchmark — but understanding what actually drives MYGA rates makes that question much easier to answer for yourself, any time you're looking.

The Main Driver: Treasury Yields

Insurance companies back their MYGA guarantees largely with high-quality bonds, especially Treasuries and investment-grade corporates. When Treasury yields rise, insurers can generally afford to offer higher guaranteed rates on new MYGA business. When yields fall, MYGA rates tend to follow, with some lag.

This is why MYGA rates and CD rates often move in the same general direction over time — both are downstream of the same broader interest-rate environment, even though the products themselves work differently.

Competition Between Carriers

Within any given rate environment, individual carriers compete for market share by adjusting their own rates relative to each other. This is exactly why comparing across 40+ carriers, rather than settling for whatever one company quotes, matters — the spread between the best and weakest available rate at any given moment can be meaningful.

Carrier-Specific Factors

A carrier's own capital position, its appetite for new business in a given product line, and its overall investment strategy all influence the specific rate it's willing to offer at any moment — separate from the broader market environment. This is part of why rates can vary noticeably between carriers even when the underlying interest-rate backdrop is the same for everyone.

Why Rate Data Needs to Be Live, Not Static

Because of all these moving pieces, a rate you saw quoted last month, or on a site that hasn't refreshed its numbers, may no longer reflect what's actually available. This is exactly why our rate tool pulls from a live, continuously updated data feed rather than a static table — you can see, and rely on, the last-updated timestamp on every rate displayed.

What This Means for Your Timing Decision

Trying to perfectly time the "best" moment to buy a MYGA is a bit like trying to time the stock market — difficult even for professionals, and often not worth the wait. A more productive approach: check current rates against your actual timeline and goals, and if a rate meets your needs today, evaluate it on its own merits rather than gambling on where rates might go next.

This is also where a laddering strategy can help take some of the timing pressure off — see our guide to MYGA laddering for how spreading deposits across multiple terms reduces the impact of getting the timing "wrong" on any single decision.

The Bottom Line

MYGA rates track the broader interest-rate environment, shaped further by competition and each carrier's individual position. Rather than guessing where rates are headed, the more useful habit is checking current, live rates against your own goals and timeline — which is exactly what the rate tool on this site is built for.