Lincoln National : Financial Group Champions Greater Ease and Optionality for Fee-Based Advisors Who Incorporate Annuities to Their Financial Planning Process

RADNOR, Pa., May 29, 2020 - Lincoln Financial Group (NYSE: LNC) is focused on providing solutions that help meet the needs of advisors and how they choose to do business - continuing to invest in its capabilities among registered investment advisors (RIAs) and in the fee-only space so that financial professionals can more seamlessly incorporate annuity strategies into their planning process with clients. Lincoln has recently made strides on two critical fronts: billing and account management, and data aggregation.

Seamless Account Billing and Management

Following a favorable private letter ruling (PLR) Lincoln received from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2019 addressing the tax treatment of advisory fees taken from non-qualified, fee-based annuities, Lincoln has introduced a client-friendly feature to alleviate any potential impact to an investor's living benefit rider or death benefit. The new feature applies to Lincoln's fee-based variable annuities, excluding indexed variable annuity products.

'Lincoln is committed to providing fee-based advisors with greater flexibility to incorporate protected lifetime income within their clients' plans. The combination of this favorable tax treatment and new fee-withdrawal feature is very powerful,' said Tad Fifer, head of Fixed Annuity Sales and RIA Sales & Strategy at Lincoln Financial Distributors. 'This time last year, directly debiting an advisory fee from an annuity could have triggered a taxable event to the client and an adverse effect to the living and death benefit protections afforded by the annuity. Today, both of these hurdles are in the rearview mirror.'

Through this more seamless tax treatment of advisory fees taken from certain nonqualified fee-based annuities, fee-based advisors may deduct fees related to investment advisory services provided for Lincoln annuity contracts without triggering a taxable event for their clients, assuming certain conditions are met.

Data Aggregation

Lincoln continues to recognize and meet the needs of fee-based advisors, recently announcing a new integration with Morningstar ByAllAccounts, a leading data aggregation service for financial applications. The integration will help fee-based advisors who work with Lincoln Financial receive a comprehensive view of their clients' portfolios to better support investment decisions, gain greater transparency into held-away assets, and help deliver better financial outcomes.

'We understand how important it is for data to be aggregated in a way that helps advisors work more effectively with their clients. Fee-based advisors are a very important audience to Lincoln, and we will continue to pave the way for these advisors to do business with us in a seamless and efficient way,' added Fifer. 'Direct data integrations like the one we now have with ByAllAccounts better support the needs of these advisors and improve their overall business experience, making it easier for them to incorporate annuities into their client's financial plans.'

Lincoln continues to grow its distribution among RIAs, offering a broad portfolio of solutions, including variable, fixed indexed, income, and indexed variable annuities. The integration with ByAllAccounts is the latest in a series of technology integrations Lincoln has forged with companies including Orion, eMoney, Envestnet/Tamarac and Redtail.

For more information about Lincoln's fee-only annuity business, please visit www.LincolnRIA.com.

About Lincoln Financial Group
Lincoln Financial Group provides advice and solutions that help empower people to take charge of their financial lives with confidence and optimism. Today, more than 17 million customers trust our retirement, insurance and wealth protection expertise to help address their lifestyle, savings and income goals, as well as to guard against long-term care expenses. Headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC) and its affiliates. The company had $247 billion in end-of-period account values as of March 31, 2020. Lincoln Financial Group is a committed corporate citizen included on major sustainability indices including the Dow Jones Sustainability Index North America and FTSE4Good. Dedicated to diversity and inclusion, Lincoln earned perfect 100 percent scores on the Corporate Equality Index and the Disability Equality Index. Lincoln has also been recognized in Newsweek's Most Responsible Companies and is among Forbes' World's Best Employers, Best Large Employers, Best Employers for Diversity, Best Employers for Women and ranked on the JUST 100 list. Learn more at: www.LincolnFinancial.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Sign up for email alerts at http://newsroom.lfg.com.

LCN-3095765-052020

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