By Marc Gilman
Questions? Call (800) 927-9326 or email
Key Takeaways
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Nationwide New Heights Select is a single-premium fixed indexed annuity combining principal protection, growth potential, and guaranteed lifetime income, issued by Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Company.
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Two optional lifetime income riders are available, each designed for a different timeline: High Point 365 Select with Bonus (an immediate 30% boost to your income base) or the no-bonus version (better suited if you plan to wait 5+ years before starting income).
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A genuine joint-life option exists: income can be guaranteed for both you and your spouse for as long as either of you is alive, regardless of who passes away first — though electing this reduces the payout percentage and bases it on the younger spouse’s age.
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Waiting to start income can increase your eventual payout percentage. The percentage range is locked in at issue, but it can rise within that range for every year you defer, up until a maximum age or percentage is reached.
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This product’s current marketing materials are explicitly not approved for use in Massachusetts (along with Idaho, Illinois, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Wyoming) — a real compliance detail worth confirming directly before discussing this product with an MA-based client.
What New Heights Select Actually Is
Nationwide New Heights Select is a single-premium, deferred fixed indexed annuity (FIA) — meaning your money isn’t invested directly in the market, but its growth potential is linked to the performance of a chosen index or strategy, while your principal stays protected from market losses. The product comes in several surrender-period variants (New Heights Select 8, 9, 10, and 12, referring to the number of years in the surrender charge schedule), and offers a range of index and strategy options to choose from, including the S&P 500 Price Index, a Nasdaq-100 Volatility Control index, and several others.
The specific feature this post focuses on is the optional lifetime income rider — the mechanism that turns this FIA into a genuine guaranteed income tool, not just a growth-and-protection vehicle.
How Growth Actually Locks In
Two mechanics are worth understanding before getting into the income riders specifically, since they apply to the contract’s growth in general. First, New Heights Select tracks your potential earnings daily through what Nationwide calls the Daily Accumulation Value (DAV) — and you have the option to lock in a strategy option’s index value once per strategy term, any business day before that term ends, protecting gains you’re satisfied with before the term’s natural conclusion. Second, and genuinely distinctive: you receive earnings-to-date on withdrawals, including Required Minimum Distributions — a real advantage over annuity structures where withdrawing mid-term means forfeiting gains that haven’t yet been formally credited.
There are also specific limits on how much you can withdraw without a penalty. During the surrender charge period, you can withdraw up to 7% of your contract value each year as a free withdrawal — no surrender charge, no market value adjustment, full earnings-to-date on the amount. Once the surrender charge period ends, that free withdrawal allowance rises to 10% per year. RMDs tied to your contract are always treated as free withdrawals regardless of the percentage.
Four Optional Riders, Not Just Two
It’s worth being precise about the full menu here before diving into income specifically: New Heights Select offers four optional riders total — two focused on lifetime income, and two focused on leaving a larger legacy through an enhanced death benefit. Only one of the four can be elected, and only at the time of application — you can’t add one later, switch between them, or combine two. That’s a real tradeoff worth understanding upfront: choosing an income rider means you’re not simultaneously getting the enhanced death benefit structure, and vice versa. Each of the four carries its own annual rider charge, deducted from contract value quarterly, for the life of the contract.
The Two Income Rider Options
Nationwide offers two versions of its High Point 365 Select Lifetime Income rider, and which one fits depends heavily on your timeline:
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High Point 365 Select Lifetime Income Rider with Bonus: at contract issue, an additional 30% of your purchase payment is immediately added to your Minimum Income Benefit Value. From there, that value continues growing daily — at a 10% compound annual rate for up to 12 years (New Heights Select 8, 9, and 12) or a 7% compound annual rate for up to 10 years (New Heights Select 10) — whichever comes first, that growth period or the date you begin taking income.
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High Point 365 Select Lifetime Income Rider (no bonus): no upfront bonus, but a 1% annual growth rate on the Minimum Income Benefit Value for up to 10 years, paired with higher lifetime income withdrawal percentages than the bonus version. A distinctive feature of this version: it automatically locks in every new daily high point your account reaches, not just at scheduled intervals, which can help increase future income along the way. Nationwide specifically positions this as the better option if you don’t plan to start income for five years or more.
There’s a real cost to keep in mind: the with-bonus rider carries an annual charge of 1.10%, calculated on your High Point Income Benefit Base and deducted from your contract value quarterly, for the life of the contract.
Eligibility has real age boundaries. To purchase the with-bonus rider, you — and your spouse, if you elect the joint option — generally need to be between ages 40 and 80 when the contract is issued. There’s a notable exception worth flagging specifically: for New Heights Select 12, the with-bonus rider is available up to age 75 in most states, but only up to age 64 in Florida.
How Your Eventual Income Is Actually Calculated
When you’re ready to begin lifetime income withdrawals, your payment is calculated as your High Point Income Benefit Base multiplied by a lifetime payout percentage. The income benefit base itself is the greater of two figures: your Minimum Income Benefit Value, or your Highest DAV (Daily Accumulation Value) — essentially the highest point your account’s daily value has reached, adjusted for withdrawals.
You can begin lifetime income after the first contract year, or once the younger covered person reaches age 50, whichever is later. Once your contract is issued, the range of possible payout percentages is locked in — but the actual percentage you receive can increase within that range for every additional year you defer starting income, up until you reach a maximum age or the top of that percentage range. Once income withdrawals actually begin, your specific percentage is locked and won’t change again.
The Joint-Life Option: What You Asked About Directly
This is the feature most relevant to a “single or joint” comparison, and it’s worth understanding precisely. Nationwide’s rider structure allows you to elect a joint option, under which lifetime income payments continue for as long as either you or your spouse is alive — regardless of who passes away first. This is a real, meaningful protection for a surviving spouse, structurally similar in purpose to the joint-and-survivor options covered elsewhere in annuity planning generally.
The tradeoff is the one you’d expect: electing the joint option results in a lower payout percentage than the single-life option, and that percentage is based on the age of the younger spouse rather than your own age alone — since the insurer is now guaranteeing payments over two lives instead of one, potentially for a longer combined period.
It’s worth knowing there’s a separate joint option for the base death benefit, independent of whichever rider you choose. The contract’s standard death benefit (the greater of your Daily Accumulation Value or surrender value) can also be structured jointly, guaranteeing a payout regardless of which spouse passes away first — with the surviving spouse able to choose between continuing the contract or taking a lump-sum payout.
What Waiting Actually Does to Your Payout Percentage
Nationwide’s own materials include a specific illustration worth seeing directly, because it makes “waiting increases your percentage” concrete rather than abstract. In this hypothetical, a 55-year-old elects the no-bonus High Point 365 Select rider and considers different ages to begin lifetime income:
Waiting from 63 to 68 — five additional years — raises the guaranteed payout percentage from 6.80% to 9.11%, an increase of roughly a third. This mechanic specifically kicks in after your fifth contract anniversary and once the younger covered life reaches age 50; before that point, the percentage doesn’t escalate the same way. As with the other examples in this piece, actual payout percentages vary by product, issue age, elected rider, and single vs. joint election — this table illustrates the mechanic, not a projection for any specific contract.
Carrier Financial Strength: Confirmed, Specifically
Since every guarantee in this product is only as good as the company standing behind it, it’s worth citing Nationwide’s current ratings directly rather than taking “financially strong” on faith: A+ from Standard & Poor’s (fifth highest of 21 rating tiers, affirmed April 2026), A+ from AM Best (second highest of 13 tiers, affirmed November 2025), and A1 from Moody’s (fifth highest of 21 tiers, affirmed October 2025). These comfortably clear the A- or better benchmark worth using as a general floor when evaluating any long-duration annuity guarantee.
Seeing the Mechanics in a Real Example
Nationwide’s own product materials include a hypothetical illustration worth walking through, since it makes the abstract growth mechanics concrete. In the example, a 60-year-old allocates $125,666 to a New Heights Select contract with the High Point 365 Select with Bonus rider, on a single-life basis, with a goal of generating an extra $25,000 in retirement income starting in 12 years.
After the full 12-year growth period (30% initial bonus plus 10% compound annual growth), her guaranteed annual income reaches $26,405 for life — exceeding her original goal. In the illustration, she then chooses to wait three additional years before actually starting withdrawals. During that time, her account’s Daily Accumulation Value happened to exceed her Minimum Income Benefit Value, and because every new daily high point locks in automatically, her guaranteed income rose further — to $30,347 for life — with her Lifetime Payout Percentage increasing from 5.15% at the 12-year mark to 5.78% three years later.
This is a hypothetical illustration from Nationwide’s own materials, not a guarantee of what any specific contract will produce — actual results and payout percentages vary by individual contract and current rates. But it usefully shows how the “greater of Minimum Income Benefit Value or Highest DAV” mechanic and the deferral-based payout percentage increase actually interact in practice.
Watching the Growth Happen Year by Year
A second hypothetical illustration from Nationwide’s own materials shows this same mechanic at a more granular level — walking through exactly how the guarantee builds each year rather than jumping straight to an end result. This example starts with a 64-year-old allocating $53,436 to a New Heights Select contract with High Point 365 Select with Bonus, with a goal of reaching $10,000 in guaranteed annual income:
The Minimum Income Benefit Value column shows the 30% bonus applied at issue ($53,436 → $69,467) followed by 10% compound annual growth every year after. The income column shows what the guaranteed lifetime income would be if withdrawals started in that specific year — these are independent snapshots, not a running total, since income only actually starts once. In this illustration, the $10,000 target is reached exactly at year 10, age 74 — but the table also makes visible what waiting longer, or starting earlier, would have meant instead.
As with the first example, this reflects Nationwide’s own hypothetical assumptions (single life, no withdrawals during the growth period) — not a projection for any actual contract.
The Legacy Alternative: Enhanced Death Benefit Riders
If income isn’t the priority — leaving a larger legacy is — the other two optional riders are worth knowing about, even though this post has focused on the income side. Nationwide offers two Enhanced Death Benefit (EDB) riders, each calculating your death benefit as the greater of two values:
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Highest DAV: your account’s highest daily value reached, which can continue increasing until the contract anniversary after the older annuitant turns 80.
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Minimum EDB Value: your purchase payment growing at a 4% annual rate, capped at 200% of your original purchase payment, until the earliest of that same age-80 anniversary or the date a death benefit becomes payable.
The second version — High Point Select Enhanced Death Benefit with Purchase Payment Bonus — adds an immediate bonus credited to your purchase payment at issue, on top of the same growth structure, for a larger starting legacy value. As with the income riders, only one of the four total optional riders can be elected, so choosing an EDB rider means forgoing the income riders’ guaranteed lifetime withdrawal structure.
The Excess Withdrawal Risk Worth Understanding
One real risk deserves its own mention: withdrawing more than your guaranteed lifetime income amount in a given year has lasting consequences. These “excess withdrawals” proportionally reduce your Highest DAV, Minimum Income Benefit Value, High Point Income Benefit Base, and — critically — your future guaranteed lifetime income payments, not just your current contract value. If an excess withdrawal reduces your contract value all the way to zero, the rider and the entire contract terminate. Lifetime income payments taken as intended are treated as free withdrawals without this consequence — but this is exactly the kind of detail worth understanding clearly before taking any withdrawal beyond your calculated guaranteed amount. Payments are also structured to be taken monthly once lifetime income begins.
A Compliance Note Worth Stating Plainly
Nationwide’s own current marketing materials for this specific rider structure explicitly state they are not approved for use in Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, or Wyoming at this time. Given how much of this discussion is naturally relevant to Massachusetts clients, this is worth confirming directly and current before this product comes up in any specific client conversation — availability and approved marketing materials can and do change, and this is exactly the kind of detail that needs verification at the point of actual use, not assumed from prior familiarity with the product.
What To Do Next
Nationwide New Heights Select’s income riders offer real flexibility — an immediate bonus versus patient higher-percentage growth, and single-life versus joint-life protection — but the right combination depends entirely on your specific timeline, whether you’re planning around a spouse’s income needs, and your state’s current product availability. If you want to look at how this structure compares against other guaranteed income options for your specific situation, reach out and we’ll work through it together.
Questions? Call (800) 927-9326 or email
Sources: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, “Reach New Heights in Retirement — Nationwide New Heights® Select Fixed Indexed Annuity Guide” (FAM-1149AO.10, applicable to New Heights Select 10, 6/26); “Nationwide High Point 365® Select Lifetime Income rider with Bonus — Guaranteed Lifetime Income Guide” (FAM-1188AO-IM.1, 08/26); “Nationwide New Heights® Select Fixed Indexed Annuity Guaranteed Income Tool — Income Planning Case Study” (FAM-1177AO-IM, 08/26); and related New Heights Select product pages at nationwidenewheights.com, current as of August 2026. Nationwide New Heights Select is a single premium, fixed indexed deferred annuity issued by Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Company, Columbus, Ohio. All guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company.
