• NLI Index CIT consists of 12 target date funds – 2010 through 2065, in 5-year vintages.

Each of the 12 target date vintages include a strategic allocation to the TIAA Secure Income Account (“SIA”). The strategic allocation to SIA is introduced at the very beginning of the glidepath, approximately 45 years from Retirement, at ~2.5%. The allocation will gradually increase until the assumed Retirement date, at which point it reaches a maximum strategic allocation of 40%. The purpose of the SIA allocation is to provide participants with the opportunity to build guaranteed lifetime income, during their working years.

• From ~45 years to Retirement until ~15 years to Retirement, the SIA allocation will be fully sourced from the U.S. Aggregate allocation. Beginning at ~15 years to Retirement, the NLI series will start to source SIA from the U.S. Aggregate, Short-Term Bond, and TIPS allocation.

• Yes, and particularly in the context of a Target Date Fund strategy:
  -The SIA is guaranteed to increase every day through guaranteed crediting rates to the Funds. This provides guaranteed growth to help shield a portion of your balance in the Funds from market volatility while you save for retirement.
  -The SIA’s guaranteed interest benefits continue if you choose to keep your balance in a Fund after you retire. This can be especially valuable since market losses when you are near or in retirement can have a greater impact on your savings and standard of living in retirement.
  -The SIA also helps protect against interest rate risk, which is particularly important for older participants who have a shorter time horizon and are more sensitive to market value losses. SIA is a substitute allocation for part of the fixed income investments, which typically lose value in rising rate environments.

While saving in retirement

Contributions made to a Fund that includes an allocation to the TIAA Secure Income Account receive competitive interest rates, regardless of market conditions. These rates will always be greater than or equal to the guaranteed minimum interest rate, which fluctuates between 1% and 3%. TIAA has credited above the minimum crediting rate on similar contracts every year since 1948.

When one retires (in retirement)

During retirement, participants have the option, but not the obligation, to elect to receive lifetime income which is paid separately by TIAA. This process is called “annuitizing”.

Participants can:
• Annuitize as little as $10,000 or your full balance if you have less than $10,000 in the Fund
• Leave as-is or take systematic withdrawals from the Fund
• Exchange or roll over into another investment (i.e., IRA).

Participants have full flexibility to make combinations of these decisions at any time as your retirement picture evolves. The only limitation is that annuitization decisions must be made before age 90 and in increments of at least $10,000 or the remaining balance of the Fund.

• All these types are permissible subject to plan rules.

• No. The TIAA Secure Income Account isn’t a securities product. It doesn’t have to be registered with the SEC, so a prospectus isn’t necessary. The TIAA Secure Income Account is a guaranteed insurance product. It is subject to oversight by state insurance commissioners including TIAA’s primary state regulator, the New York Department of Financial Services. The TIAA Secure Income Account isn’t a mutual fund and isn’t publicly traded, so there’s no public “ticker” for it, although for the purposes of trading and identification, CUSIPs and internal tickers exist.

• The TIAA Secure Income Account credits interest under the contract, which is issued to SEI Trust Company as trustee of the Nuveen Lifecycle Income Funds, based on when inflows are directed to the contract by Nuveen. Think of it as an interest rate bucket approach. Different portions of the contract balance are in different buckets and may earn different interest rates. TIAA refers to these buckets as “vintages”. TIAA maintains participant Secure Income Account balances in vintages as well and on a daily basis these balances are credited with interest at a rate based on the dollar-weighted average crediting rate across all of the vintages associated with the TIAA Secure Income Account contract.

• When setting interest rates, TIAA considers many factors, including the interest rate environment when the funds were contributed or transferred in, changes in interest rates over time, TIAA’s expenses, the financial experience of TIAA’s General Account, and the need to maintain adequate capital.
  While the investment returns of TIAA’s General Account don’t flow directly to TIAA Secure Income Account participants, interest crediting rates reflect, in part, the yields and earnings that TIAA obtains on bonds and other investments.

• TIAA guarantees that the balance in the TIAA Secure Income Account will never decline even in a rising interest rate environment (assuming the contract is active). In a rising interest rate environment, it’s likely that newly declared interest rates under the TIAA Secure Income Account would also be rising. This contrasts with a typical bond fund, where rising interest rates may result in the bond fund balance decreasing.
  
  Conversely, during a declining interest rate environment, it’s likely that newly declared interest crediting rates for the TIAA Secure Income Account wouldn’t be as high, resulting in participant balances growing at a slower rate. However, the declared crediting rate will never go below the current guaranteed minimum rate which is between 1% and 3% and is re-determined annually every March 1st.

• The TIAA Secure Income Account:
  • Guarantees consistently positive rates of return that are announced in advance
  • Protects principal and accrued interest from market volatility
  • Gives a participant an opportunity to convert some or all their balance to an annuity that will provide guaranteed retirement income that they, or their spouse or partner, can never outlive
  • Is fully liquid to a participant for balances not yet converted to lifetime income
  • The SIA is designed with the goal of providing competitive amounts of lifetime income in retirement for participants who choose lifetime income.
  
  Two distinctive benefits not found in other fixed annuity solutions are made possible by TIAA’s sharing the profits approach and include:
  
  1. Potential for a TIAA Loyalty Bonus^SM: Typically, the longer you contribute to the account, the higher lifetime income you can receive per dollar annuitized. For example, for retirements over the last decade ending 4/1/2024, participants who made recurring monthly contributions (over periods ranging from 5 to 30 years) to a similar TIAA fixed annuity have received between 3% and 15% more lifetime income, on average, than participants annuitizing the same amount as a new money contribution.
  
  
  2. Potential for escalating payments in retirement: TIAA may periodically declare increases in annuity payment amounts. For example, TIAA has increased in-flight fixed annuity payments 18 times since 1995 at an average annual increase of over 1%, including a 5% increase in 2022 and 3% increase in 2023. When declared, these increases can help offset some of the negative effects of inflation.

• The expense ratio for each vintage of the Funds can be found on Fund literature such as fact sheets.
• With respect to the SIA, unlike a variable annuity or mutual fund, the SIA does not include an identifiable “expense ratio” or “fee”. SIA is not an investment product for purposes of federal securities laws. It is a guaranteed insurance contract.

• Participants will be automatically defaulted into their age-appropriate vintage, just like they currently are for our Lifecycle products. It assumes participants will reach 67 years old at the target retirement date and we expand +/-2 years from the target retirement date for each vintage.

• TIAA will maintain data feeds that are fully integrated with recordkeeping and/or middleware platforms, allowing TIAA to perform participant level sub-accounting with respect to participant level benefits.

• Just like other CITs, the NLI Index CITs will trade via the NSCC with standard T+1 settlement.

• Plans must notify SEI (Trustee of the CITs) of the Plan’s desire to redeem out of the Nuveen Lifecycle Income Index Funds at least 90 days prior to the Plan redemption date. Based on market conditions and SIA contractual restrictions, SEI may allow the Plan to redeem before the 90 day notification period elapses.
  
  For Plan redemptions, Nuveen expects to meet the redemption, on the Plan’s redemption date, such that the non-SIA assets are redeemed at market value and the SIA assets are redeemed at the SIA Adjusted Accumulation Value (AAV). You can think of the SIA Adjusted Accumulation Value (AAV) as a market adjustment to SIA, so that the remaining plan sponsors and plan participants are not negatively impacted by the Withdrawing Plan’s redemption. Note, the Adjusted Accumulation Value is capped at the Contract Accumulation Value of SIA.
  
  The SIA Adjusted Accumulation Value is calculated by multiplying the Interest Fluctuation Factor (IFF) with the SIA Contract Accumulation Value (CAV) on the Plan’s redemption date.
  
  If, at the point of Redemption, the Adjusted Accumulation Value is lower than the Guaranteed Minimum Accumulation Value (GMAV) then the plan level redemption will be met, in cash, at the Adjusted Accumulation Value. As an additional level of protection of the plan participants, we will deliver the difference between the AAV and GMAV via a guaranteed funding agreement. Alternatively, the Plan can elect to receive the Full SIA Contract Value to be delivered via a Guaranteed Funding Agreement payable over no more than 5 years (6 installments).
  
  Please note, the Guaranteed Funding Agreement is a General Account based solution intended to provide a more seamless experience to a client looking to terminate. It is not intended as a long-term option and TIAA would not be supplying this solution to a plan looking for a long-term stable value (or money market) replacement. We would set a crediting rate that aligns with the expected payout stream (i.e., over a 5-year term). Since this will likely involve a shorter average-weighted maturity/life than the investment strategy employed for the general account more broadly, we would anticipate the crediting rate would be lower in an upward-sloping yield curve environment. However, this is hypothetical and it is difficult to estimate as there are a variety of factors to consider here. But, that would be generally how we'd approach crediting rate setting in this scenario.
  
  

• Yes. Each Plan’s recordkeeper must enter into a Facilitation Agreement with TIAA. This Agreement will establish the data feeds that TIAA requires to perform participant level sub-accounting, specific to each participant’s accrued benefits. Additionally, each recordkeeper will need to have Non-Exclusive Servicing Agreement (NESA) in place with SEI.

• Yes. While the participant will be automatically defaulted into their age-appropriate vintage, they can actively elect to invest in any of the NLI Index CIT vintages – irrespective of their age. Note, this is not the case for all of our competitors. Some competitors age-gate their vintages, limiting the participants’ ability to invest with full flexibility, as a result of constraints placed by their annuity providers. That said, it is worth noting, if a participant liquidates their position in a NLI vintage and remaps into a different NLI Index CIT vintage, they will lose their accrued benefits.

• In order to receive guaranteed lifetime income in retirement, participants must affirmatively elect to take some or all of your Fund balance to purchase the annuity income benefits from TIAA – they will not receive any income annuity benefits simply by investing in the Fund.
• If a participant affirmatively elect to take their balance and purchase a retirement income annuity benefit from TIAA, the TIAA Loyalty Bonus^SM functions to increase the amount of the retirement income annuity benefit that they might otherwise receive if they purchased an annuity without such a loyalty bonus.
• If a participant does not affirmatively elect to take some or all of your balance in the Fund and purchase an annuity income benefit from TIAA, then they will not receive any guaranteed retirement income benefits.

• TIAA’s dedicated Lifetime Income Consultants can help guide participants through the process of determining whether and how much lifetime income might be of interest for their unique needs.
• The Lifetime Income Consultant will guide the participant to consider all of their monthly recurring living expenses such as housing, food, utilities, and healthcare, just to name a few. Then look at income that they might be getting from other guaranteed sources such as Social Security or a pension if they have one. If they have a gap between recurring expenses and existing guaranteed income sources, then using a lifetime income stream from the SIA may be something to consider in order to cover that gap.

• Yes. The participant can choose to annuitize a portion or the entirety of the SIA allocation within the NLI Index CIT in which they are invested. For a full annuitization, there is no minimum dollar annuitization requirement. For a partial annuitization, a participant is required to annuitize, at least, $10,000. Note, here we are specifically referring to the assets invested in the underlying SIA allocation – not the amount of total asset invested in the NLI series. During, and throughout retirement, the annuitized participant will have access to a TIAA Lifetime Income Consultant and educational literature/content.

• Per ERISA tax rules, beginning at age 59.5, participants become eligible for penalty free annuitization and can annuitize at any point thereafter, until age 90. Note, subject to plan rules, participants may have the flexibility to annuitize before, or after, age 59.5. However, the lifetime income projections provided by TIAA assume participants are annuitizing at age 65 and selecting a single life payment with a 10-year period certain. Importantly, if participants annuitize before age 65, they would receive a reduced payout rate based on interest and longevity rates at the time of annuitization (similar to Social Security, which reduces payout for early registrations). Similarly, if participants annuitize after age 65, they would receive a higher payout rate based on interest and longevity rates at the time of annuitization.

• Yes, the participant can choose to annuitize more than their SIA allocation within the NLI Index CIT in which they are invested. Since the amount above their SIA allocation was not invested in SIA, it did not accrue any loyalty bonus and therefore, will receive the new money payout rate offered by TIAA at the time of annuitization.

• Upon annuitization, we envision the following processes:
  
  the participant’s balance, invested in the target date vintage, will be liquidated in proportion to the dollar amount they are seeking to annuitize and will be sent to TIAA.
  
  the remaining balance will stay invested in their existing target date vintage and TIAA will adjust the participant’s notional SIA balance pro-rata based on the actual withdrawal taken from the CIT.
  
  Any new dollars allocated to SIA, for the participant, will be invested at the new money rate (if the participant partially annuitizes, the un-annuitized SIA allocation will maintain its accrued benefits while all new dollars allocated to SIA will earn new money rates).
  
  

• If the participant chooses not to annuitize, they can stay in their age-appropriate vintage – or whatever vintage they’re invested in – and decide to take systematic withdrawals throughout their retirement. Note, in order for participants to take systematic withdraws, plan documents must allow for it.

• No. As long as participants have a balance remaining in a Fund that includes an allocation to the SIA, they have the ability to begin multiple streams of lifetime income. However, they cannot begin a new stream of lifetime income upon attaining age 90.

• A participant would forfeit their benefits, and any accumulated loyalty bonus, if they:
  • fully liquidate their position in the NLI (or roll their NLI balance from from employer A to employer B)
  • choose never to annuitize the SIA allocation within their NLI vintage
  • liquidate their position in their NLI vintage and remap into a different NLI vintage.

• Participants would be unable to access a potential TIAA Loyalty Bonus if:
  • If they fully liquidate their position in the Funds, for example through a lump sum withdrawal from the plan
  • If they choose never to annuitize any portion of the Fund
  • If they transfer out of one Fund vintage that includes the SIA and transfer to any other fund. If the newly selected fund includes SIA, this transfer will erase any TIAA Loyalty Bonus that may have been built in the previous fund.

• This solution was designed with portability in mind. See below for certain examples of how this TDF solution, and the associated annuity benefits, are portable:
  Plan Level Recordkeeper Change: the NLI Index CITs, and any associated accrued benefits, are fully portable to another recordkeeper that also support the NLI Index CITs.
  Participant Level Rollover: a participant can liquidate their position in the NLI Index CIT vintage, and roll their Secure Income Account balance into a TIAA annuity, within a TIAA IRA, while maintaining their loyalty bonus.
  Participant Termination: Subject to plan rules, the participant could retain their balance in-plan and receive all of the benefits of the in-plan structure. If the plan does not allow terminated participants to remain in-plan, then the option to rollover to a TIAA fixed annuity within a TIAA IRA would be available, as described above.
  See description of different Loyalty Bonus portability scenario

• To help the participant with the annuitization decision, they have access to a TIAA Lifetime Income Consultant and educational literature/content. Specifically, participants will benefit from:
  • Answers to questions about the benefits of lifetime income
  • Personalized lifetime retirement income illustrations • Answers to questions about how to begin lifetime retirement income and payment options
  • Help with choosing type and frequency of lifetime retirement income payments, joint life annuities and minimum guarantee payment periods
  • Discussions at or near retirement about:
  - Optimizing lifetime income start dates
  - Benefits of lifetime income
  - Various income options
  - Value of TIAA Secure Income Account accumulation
  - Process to begin to elect lifetime income payments
  

• Participants that elect to convert some or all of their balance in the TIAA Secure Income Account to lifetime income will begin to receive monthly, quarterly, semiannual or annual payments directly from TIAA. The frequency of payments and mode of delivery will be based on the participant’s election on TIAA’s lifetime income selection form.
  
  TIAA will provide 1099R tax forms directly to the participant.

• Although we can’t provide tax or financial advice, the income the plan’s participants receive under a lifetime income election will be taxed appropriately based on the source type of the contributions used to purchase the life annuity.
  
  For example, lifetime income purchased with pretax contributions is ordinarily fully taxable as ordinary income.
  
  However, if the plan’s participants have made after-tax contributions to the plan, all or part of their lifetime income may be tax free. The tax-free portion depends on how much they’ve contributed and the structure of the lifetime income.
  
  

• Participants residing in the United States may generally choose the amount to be withheld.
  
  Participants who do not make an election to withhold will have federal income tax withheld from lifetime income as if they were married claiming three withholding allowances.
  
  A participant’s state of domicile or residence may also require income tax to be withheld from lifetime income annuity payments.
  
  Special withholding rules apply to payments made overseas or to non-resident alien individuals.
  
  

• Participants required to take Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) in the year they begin annuity income will automatically satisfy the amount required for the inaugural year in direct proportion of the amount converted to lifetime income.
  
  Beyond the inaugural year, lifetime income payments do not satisfy RMD calculated on assets not converted to lifetime income.
  
  Participants may elect to fully satisfy RMD prior to annuitization. Lifetime income payments will be in addition to the RMD, with no non-RMD impact to the non-annuitized balances.
  
  

• Recordkeepers with plans using the TIAA Secure Income Account that include multiple money sources (EE/ER, post-tax/pretax) will need to either support the proration of the investment amount across money sources on their platform, or preferably, provide an account identifier on the files sent inbound to TIAA to identify the record as belonging to another money source.
  
  If the participant is annuitizing amounts in pretax and post-tax sources, TIAA will rely on the recordkeeper to provide the split of the amount used to purchase the life annuity so that we can properly set up the payout annuity records and handle tax reporting.

• Participants can convert some or all of their TIAA Secure Income Account accumulation to guaranteed lifetime income.
  
  · Single Life Annuity pays income for as long as a participant lives.
  · Joint Life Annuity pays income as long as the participant or their designated survivor is living, including 50% to second annuitant (QJSA, if spouse); 66% to last survivor; 75% to second annuitant; and 100% to last survivor.
  · These options can include a guarantee period (i.e., 10, 15 or 20 years) so that payments will continue to those the participant designates if the participant passes before the end of the guarantee period.
  · Participants are permitted to annuitize multiple times over multiple time periods: e.g., participant annuities a portion of their account and then waits a few years while gauging their health status before deciding to annuitize some or all of their remaining balance.

• Participants may select monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual. As the annuitant, they have the ability to change the frequency of their payments once income has begun.

• No. Once a participant begins lifetime income they cannot reverse the decision. Their decision to elect annuity income, inclusive of any annuity partner (also known as a second annuitant) and their benefit amount and any guarantee period elected are all irrevocable elections.
• If the participant has made an election to add a guarantee period, they can change the beneficiary associated with the guarantee period. Participants can also change their annuity payment frequency (e.g., from monthly to quarterly). Both of these can be accomplished by contacting TIAA directly at 800-842-2252.

• The TIAA Secure Income Account offers the benefits of any fixed annuity: It can provide stability, protection, and flexibility. It offers a solid foundation for retirement savings, because its guaranteed returns don’t fluctuate with market volatility, thereby protecting this portion of retirement savings from losses. This can be especially important as participants approach and live in retirement—when market downturns may have a more severe impact on one’s retirement plan or standard of living.
  
  The TIAA Secure Income Account can also provide a foundation of protected lifetime income. Participants can use this, for example, to help cover their essential living expenses in retirement. Of course, participants won’t be required to convert any of their account balance to lifetime income, but they have the choice.
  
  Any amounts that a participant doesn’t convert to lifetime income can remain in the account and continue to earn interest (depending on the rules of the employer’s plan). A participant can choose to withdraw these amounts in full or in part later, at whatever pace suits their needs.