Strategy. The fund pursues its investment objective by investing in shares of two underlying funds, the American Funds Insurance Series International Fund (the International Fund) and the American Funds Insurance Series The Bond Fund of America (The Bond Fund of America) while seeking to manage portfolio volatility and provide downside protection primarily through the use of exchange-traded options and futures contracts. The fund normally seeks to invest 85% of its assets in the International Fund, the investment objective of which is to provide long-term growth of capital. The International Fund invests primarily in common stocks of companies outside the United States, including in emerging markets, that the investment adviser believes have the potential for growth. The fund invests the remainder of … Show more… The fund pursues its investment objective by investing in shares of two underlying funds, the American Funds Insurance Series International Fund (the International Fund) and the American Funds Insurance Series The Bond Fund of America (The Bond Fund of America) while seeking to manage portfolio volatility and provide downside protection primarily through the use of exchange-traded options and futures contracts. The fund normally seeks to invest 85% of its assets in the International Fund, the investment objective of which is to provide long-term growth of capital. The International Fund invests primarily in common stocks of companies outside the United States, including in emerging markets, that the investment adviser believes have the potential for growth. The fund invests the remainder of its assets in The Bond Fund of America and in cash, financial futures and options as part of the managed risk strategy. The Bond Fund of Americas investment objective is to provide as high a level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of capital. The Bond Fund of America seeks to maximize your level of current income and preserve your capital by investing primarily in bonds. Normally, The Bond Fund of America invests at least 80% of its assets in bonds and other debt securities, which may be represented by derivatives. The Bond Fund of America invests at least 60% of its assets in debt securities (excluding derivatives) rated A3 or better or A- or better by Nationally Recognized Statistical Ratings Organizations designated by the funds investment adviser, or in debt securities that are unrated but determined to be of equivalent quality by the fund's investment adviser and in U.S. government securities, money market instruments, cash or cash equivalents. The funds investment in The Bond Fund of America seeks to provide a level of diversification across asset classes. Because different asset classes often react differently to changes in market conditions, such diversification seeks to manage the fund's risk to market changes, including stock market declines. Additionally, the fund employs a risk-management overlay referred to in this prospectus as the managed risk strategy. The managed risk strategy consists of using hedge instruments primarily exchange-traded futures contracts and/or exchange-traded put options to attempt to stabilize the volatility of the fund around a target volatility level and to seek to reduce the downside exposure of the fund. The fund employs a subadviser to select individual put options and futures contracts on equity indexes of U.S. markets and markets outside the United States that the subadviser believes are correlated to the underlying funds equity exposure. These instruments are selected based on the subadvisers analysis of the relation of various equity indexes to the underlying funds portfolio. In addition, the subadviser will monitor liquidity levels of relevant options and futures contracts and transparency provided by exchanges as the counterparties in hedging transactions. The target volatility level will be set from time to time by the investment adviser and the subadviser and may be adjusted if deemed advisable in the judgment of the investment adviser and the subadviser. The subadviser may also seek to hedge the funds currency risk related to its exposure to equity index options and futures denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. A futures contract on an index is an agreement pursuant to which two parties agree to take or make delivery of an amount of cash linked to the value of the index at the close of the last trading day of the contract. Though similar, an option on an index gives one party the contractual right (but not the obligation) to take or make delivery of an amount of cash linked to the value of the underlying index. Because such instruments derive their respective values from the price of an underlying index, both options and futures contracts are considered derivatives. A long position in an equity index put option and a short position in an equity index futures contract are both expected to gain in value when the underlying index declines, and lose value when the underlying index rises. The subadviser regularly adjusts the level of exchange-traded options and futures contracts held by the fund to seek to manage the funds overall net risk level. In situations of extreme market volatility, the subadviser will tend to use exchange-traded equity index options and/or futures more heavily, as such investments could significantly reduce the funds net economic exposure to equity securities. Even in periods of low volatility in the equity markets, however, the subadviser will continue to employ exchange-traded equity index put options to seek to preserve gains after favorable market conditions and to reduce losses in adverse market conditions. During such periods of low equity market volatility, the subadviser may also continue to use exchange-traded equity index futures contracts for hedging purposes, though it need not necessarily do so. In certain market conditions, the fund may also purchase exchange-traded equity index call options, write or sell exchange-traded equity index put and call options and/or take net long positions in exchange-traded equity index futures contracts. Show less