American Equity Investment Life Holding Company^® (NYSE:AEL) is proud to announce its subsidiary American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company^®, a leader in the sale of fixed index annuities, has been ranked the highest annuity provider for Customer Satisfaction in the J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Individual Annuity Study.

According to the research, AEL bucked the industry trends, exhibiting the largest year-over-year increases in Customer Satisfaction J.D. Power has seen in the study.

“This is exciting news to hear we have increased our score in this survey by 37 points since 2020,” said Anant Bhalla, CEO and President of American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company. “We have been focused and intentional in the way we communicate and interact with both our policyholders and our industry partners because we know it is these types of special touch points between AEL and our clients that differentiates us from the competition.”

Based on a 1,000-point scale, AEL ranked the highest with a score of 838. The industry average score was 789. To measure customer satisfaction, critical-to-customer experience factors are examined using an index model. The model identifies the dominant factors that impact customer satisfaction and behavior and provides a benchmark of excellence for each. The U.S. Individual Annuity Study measures overall customer satisfaction based on performance in five factors (in alphabetical order): communications; interaction; product offerings; price; and statements.

“In addition to AEL’s strong performance overall in this study, AEL customers also ranked the company highest in the Statements and Communications factors,” said Robert Lajdziak, Director of Intelligence at J.D. Power. “Such strong performance indicates AEL’s commitment to ensuring customers understand the value of their Annuity product and is a powerful driver in AEL’s overall results.”

Bhalla added, “We celebrated with our internal team members last week and this week we begin to take the news on the road as we share this success with our agents, who also play a very important role in delivering our products, and more importantly, our promises for financial dignity in retirement.”

About American Equity

American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company^® is a full-service underwriter of fixed annuity products, with a primary emphasis on the sale of index annuities. Headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company is committed to providing products with integrity, as well as superior service to the agents it partners with and their contract owners. For more information, please visit www.american-equity.com.

About AEL

At American Equity Investment Life Holding Company (NYSE: AEL), we think of ourselves as The Financial Dignity Company^TM. Our contract owners work with independent agents, banks and broker-dealers through our wholly-owned operating subsidiaries, to choose one of our leading annuity products best suited for their personal needs to create financial dignity in retirement. To deliver on its promises to contract owners, American Equity has re-framed its investments focus – building a stronger emphasis on insurance liability driven asset allocation and specializing in alternate, private asset management. American Equity is headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa with satellite offices slated to open in 2022 in Charlotte, NC and New York, NY. For more information, please visit www.american-equity.com.

About J.D. Power

J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. A pioneer in the use of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic modeling capabilities to understand consumer behavior, J.D. Power has been delivering incisive industry intelligence on customer interactions with brands and products for more than 50 years. The world's leading businesses across major industries rely on J.D. Power to guide their customer-facing strategies.

J.D. Power has offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. To learn more about the company’s business offerings, visit JDPower.com/business. The J.D. Power auto shopping tool can be found at JDPower.com.

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