TIAA Traditional Interest Rates Remain High

Competitive interest rates continue providing additional growth beyond guarantees

NEW YORK, March 4, 2024 –TIAA is continuing to offer competitive interest rates on TIAA Traditional, enhancing the retirement security for over two million Americans who are accumulating savings through the company’s flagship fixed annuity product.

These rates include an expected $2.6 billion above the contractually guaranteed interest rates this year. TIAA has credited interest and benefits above the guaranteed minimum every year since 1948.i

“For over 100 years, our flagship product, the TIAA Traditional annuity, has helped millions of participants build and prepare a solid retirement foundation,” said Colbert Narcisse, chief product and business development officer at TIAA. “TIAA stands apart by offering the opportunity for interest beyond the guarantees through our sharing the profits approach.ii”

TIAA Traditional Annuity Accumulations Total Effective Interest Rates Credited from 3/1/2024 to 2/28/2025

In addition, TIAA Traditional has paid more in lifetime income to retired clients than its contractually guaranteed minimum amounts every year since 1949, providing clients who choose to annuitizeiii with steady, guaranteed lifetime income payments regardless of market conditions for a more secure retirement for as long as they live.

Data from the 2023 TIAA Institute–GFLEC Personal Finance IndexOpens pdf found that most Americans either do not know or underestimate how long a 65-year old will live on average. Longevity literacy is important since retirement income security requires planning, saving, and preparing for a period that is uncertain in length.

TIAA Traditional can help offset longevity risk by offering:

  • Guaranteed Growth and Income: i TIAA Traditional provides guaranteed growth as participants save for retirement. This means the value of participants’ retirement savings is guaranteed to increase every day – even in the most volatile markets. It also provides the opportunity to turn retirement savings into guaranteed lifetime monthly income. It’s like getting a “retirement paycheck”iv for life when you stop working.
  • Additional Amounts.v Along with guaranteed growth and income benefits, TIAA Traditional offers the opportunity to receive additional interest and income. TIAA has paid additional amounts for over 70 consecutive years.
  • TIAA Loyalty Bonus(SM).vi TIAA Traditional also offers a unique opportunity for a TIAA Loyalty Bonus that rewards long-term participants with additional higher amounts of income when they choose to receive retirement income benefits. Contributing to TIAA Traditional consistently over a working career can significantly increase income benefits, with a historical average income advantage of up to 20%.vii

Returning Profits to Clients

TIAA was founded over 100 years ago to help educators retire with dignity and is now a market-leading retirement company focused on helping millions more achieve a secure retirement. Its unique sharing of profits approach enables a pure focus on serving its plan clients and their employee participants.

TIAA has paid out over a half a trillion dollars in retirement benefits since its founding.

TIAA Traditional is backed by TIAA’s general account. TIAA takes a disciplined approach to managing the assets in its general account, investing in a broadly diversified portfolio that enables long-term, competitive returns.viii

TIAA has a broad suite of lifetime income products to meet institutional and retail clients where they are. These include:

  • TIAA RetirePlusOpens in a new window can be a qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) for the 403(b) and nonprofit market. It combines the ease of a familiar target-date structure with the ability to select investments from the existing plan while potentially lowering administrating costs and fees. RetirePlus allows participants to convert some or all of their savings into a ‘retirement paycheck’ iv when TIAA Traditional is built into the plan.
  • In addition to RetirePlus, TIAA offers the TIAA Secure Income AccountOpens in a new window (SIA), a fixed annuity like the TIAA Traditional annuity but specifically designed to be used as an allocation within managed accounts or target-date portfolio strategies in non-403(b) plans.
  • The TIAA SIA is also embedded within the Nuveen Lifecycle Income CIT SeriesOpens in a new window, a collective investment trust (CIT) target-date solution that offers participants the option of converting a portfolio of their holdings into guaranteed income at retirement. The trustee of the CIT is SEI Trust Company.

About TIAA

TIAA is a leading provider of secure retirements and outcome-focused investment solutions to millions of people and thousands of institutions. It is the #1 not-for-profit retirement market providerix, paid more than $5.6 billion in lifetime income to retired clients in 2022 and has $1.28 trillion in assets under management (as of 12/31/2023)x.

Learn more about TIAA  
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Press contact:

Elizabeth Anderson
888-200-4062
Media@TIAA.orgOpens Email

Annuity contracts may contain terms for keeping them in force. We can provide you with costs and complete details.

TIAA Traditional and TIAA Secure Income Account are fixed annuities issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), 730 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017:TIAA Traditional Form series including but not limited to: 1000.24; G-1000.4; IGRS-01-84-ACC; IGRSP-01-84-ACC; 6008.8. TIAA Secure Income Account Form series including but not limited to: TIAA-UQDIA-002-K and related state specific versions. Not all contracts are available in all states or currently issued.

TIAA RetirePlus® model portfolios are asset allocation recommendations developed in one of three ways, depending on your plan structure: i) by your plan sponsor, ii) by your plan sponsor in consultation with consultants and other investment advisors designated by the plan sponsor, or iii) exclusively by consultants and other investment advisors selected by your plan sponsor whereby assets are allocated to underlying mutual funds and annuities that are permissible investments under the plan. Model-based accounts will be managed on the basis of the plan participant’s personal financial situation and investment objectives (for example, taking into account factors such as participant age and risk capacity as determined by a risk tolerance questionnaire).

No registration under the Investment Company Act, the Securities Act or state securities laws – a model is not a mutual fund or other type of security and will not be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, and no units or shares of the model will be registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, nor will they be registered with any state securities regulator. Accordingly, the model is not subject to compliance with the requirements of such acts, nor may plan participants investing in underlying investments based on the model avail themselves of the protections thereunder, except to the extent that one or more underlying investments or interests therein are registered under such acts.

TIAA RetirePlus SelectSM and TIAA RetirePlus Pro® are administered by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (“TIAA”) as plan recordkeeper. Transactions in the underlying investments invested in, based on the models, on behalf of the plan participants are executed through TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC, member FINRA.

More information about TIAA RetirePlus model portfolios can be found at tiaa.org/public/plansponsors/investment-solutions/custom-default-optionsOpens in a new window.Opens in a new window

TIAA RetirePlus SelectSM is a service mark and TIAA RetirePlus® and TIAA RetirePlus Pro® are registered trademarks of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America.

About Nuveen Lifecycle Income CIT Series

SEI Trust Company serves as the Trustee of the Nuveen/SEI Trust Company Investment Trust III and maintains ultimate fiduciary authority over the management of, and the investments made, in the Nuveen Lifecycle Income CIT Series (Lifecycle Income CIT Series). 

Each fund is part of a trust operated by the trustee. The trustee is a trust company organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and wholly owned subsidiary of SEI Investments Company (SEI). The Lifecycle Income CIT Series is managed by the trustee, based on the investment advice of Nuveen Fund Advisors, LLC, the investment adviser to the trust, and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC as investment sub-adviser to the Lifecycle Income CIT Series.

The Lifecycle Income CIT Series are trusts for the collective investment of assets of participating tax qualified pension and profit-sharing plans and related trusts, governmental plans and other eligible plans, as more fully described in the Declaration of Trust. As a bank collective investment trust, the trust is exempt from registration as an investment company. A plan fiduciary should consider the funds’ objectives, risks, and expenses before investing. This and other information can be found in the Declaration of Trust and the Funds’ Disclosure Memorandum.

i All guarantees are based on TIAA's claims-paying ability. TIAA Traditional is a guaranteed insurance contract and not an investment for federal securities law purposes.

ii TIAA may share profits with TIAA Traditional Annuity owners through declared additional amounts of interest during accumulation, higher initial annuity income, and through further increases in annuity income benefits during retirement.  These additional amounts are not guaranteed beyond the period for which they were declared.

iii Converting some or all of your savings to income benefits (referred to as "annuitization") is a permanent decision.  Once income benefit payments have begun, you are unable to change to another option.

iv "Paycheck" is the annuity income received in retirement. Guarantees of fixed monthly payments are only associated with TIAA's fixed annuities.

v TIAA may declare additional amounts of interest and income benefits above contractually guaranteed levels. Additional amounts are not guaranteed beyond the period for which they are declared.

vi TIAA may provide a Loyalty Bonus that is only available when electing lifetime income. The amount of the bonus is discretionary and determined annually.

vii Based on an analysis of income benefits available to participants who have consistently contributed to TIAA Traditional, relative to participants who converted the same accumulated balance into Traditional just before converting to lifetime income. Assumes a participant aged 67, single life annuity with a 10-year guarantee period, and average payment differentials over the last 20 years ending 12/31/23.

viii The TIAA General Account is an insurance company account and is not available to investors as an investment.

ix As of July 21, 2022. Based on data in PLANSPONSOR's 403(b) 2022 DC Recordkeeping Survey, combined 457 and 403(b) data.

x As of December 31, 2023 assets under management across Nuveen Investments affiliates and TIAA investment management teams are $1,284 billion.