Cite as: 510 U. S. 86 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
This much is not in dispute. During the contract's active, accumulation phase, any benefits payable by Hancock for which entries actually have been made in the Liabilities of the Fund fit squarely within the "guaranteed" category. Furthermore, if the active phase of the contract were to end, all benefits thereafter payable under the contract would be guaranteed in amount. To this extent also, GAC 50 "provides for benefits the amount of which is guaranteed."
We turn, then, to the nub of the controversy, Hancock's responsibility for administration of the free funds during GAC 50's active phase. Between 1977 and 1982, we note first, GAC 50 furnished retirement benefits expressly called "nonguaranteed"; those benefits, it is undisputed, entailed no "amount . . . guaranteed by the insurer." 29 U. S. C. § 1101(b)(2)(B); see supra, at 92. To that extent, GAC 50 does not fall within the statutory exemption. But the non-guaranteed benefit option is not the only misfit.
GAC 50, in key respects, is similar to the Flexible Fund contract examined in United Benefit. In that case, as in this one, the contract's aggregate value depended upon the insurer's success as an investment manager. Under both contracts, until the occurrence of a triggering event—contract maturity in the Flexible Fund case, Harris' exercise of its conversion option in the case of GAC 50—the investment risk is borne primarily by the contractholder. Confronting a contract bearing similar features, the Seventh Circuit stated:
"The pension trustees did not buy an insurance contract with a fixed payout; they turned over the assets of the pension plan to [the insurer] to manage with full investment discretion, subject only to a modest income guaranty. If the pension plan had hired an investment advisor and given him authority to buy and sell securities at his discretion for the plan's account, the advisor would be a fiduciary within the meaning of [ERISA], and that is essentially what the trustees did during the accumula-
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