I know someone who had $1,200,000 in this type product with a $60,000/yr guarantee for life based on 5% withdrawals.
Now, after the 2008 meltdown, his account is worth only $800,000 in cash, but his shadow account guarantee is the same.
His friends all complain that they wished they had bought the guarantee rather than invest blindly with a buy and hold and hope long only strategy.

What they don't tell you is that the capital preservation is only in terms of " Nominal " sense and not " Real " terms. In other words e.g. if your original capital was $100,000, Ten years later you will get $100,000 which will be worth a lot less than today's value because of the inflation. So in reality , there is no capital preservation in " Real " terms.

the only guarantee is the income. Which is funded by your own money. Your paying an Annuity fee to Fidelity so that they can insure that you pay your own income. Does that make sense? ask the thousands of people that were influenced to buy one of these products from reps that were moviated to sell them and didn't understand the product themselves. Maybe that's why Fidelity is taking it off the shelf. Shame.Shame.Shame...

I have really enjoyed working with Fidelity. They were able to explain their package and provided me with a good deal. I feel secure with them.