Form 497K AMERICAN FUNDS INSURANCE

 

	American Funds Insurance Series® Portfolio Series American Funds Global Growth Portfolio Summary prospectus Class 4 shares May 1, 2016

Before you invest, you may want to review the fund’s prospectus and statement of additional information, which contain more information about the fund and its risks. You can find the fund’s prospectus, statement of additional information and other information about the fund online at americanfunds.com/afis. You can also get this information at no cost by calling (800) 421-9900, ext. 65413 or by sending an email request to [email protected]. The current prospectus and statement of additional information, dated May 1, 2016, are incorporated by reference into this summary prospectus.

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Investment objective

The fund’s investment objective is to provide long-term growth of capital.

Fees and expenses of the fund

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold an interest in Class 4 shares of the fund. It does not reflect insurance contract fees and expenses. If insurance contract fees and expenses were reflected, expenses shown would be higher.

Annual fund operating expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)	Class 4
Management fees	None
Distribution fees	0.25%
Other expenses1	0.38
Acquired (underlying) fund fees and expenses	0.62
Total annual fund operating expenses	1.25
Fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement2	0.06
Total annual fund operating expenses after fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement	1.19

¹ Based on estimated amounts for the current fiscal year.

² The investment adviser is currently reimbursing a portion of other expenses. This reimbursement will be in effect through at least May 1, 2017, unless modified or terminated by the fund’s board. The adviser may elect at its discretion to extend, modify or terminate the reimbursement at that time.

Example This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in Class 4 shares of the fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds.

The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same. The example does not reflect insurance contract expenses. If insurance contract expenses were reflected, expenses shown would be higher. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

	1 year	3 years	5 years	10 years
Class 4	$121	$391	$681	$1,506

Portfolio turnover The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund’s investment results. During the period ended December 31, 2015, the fund's portfolio turnover rate was 32% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal investment strategies

The fund will attempt to achieve its investment objective by investing in a mix of American Funds Insurance Series (AFIS) funds in different combinations and weightings. The underlying AFIS funds will primarily consist of growth funds. The fund may also invest in growth-and-income funds. Through its investments in the underlying funds, the fund will have significant exposure to growth-oriented common stocks.

The fund will invest primarily in global and international funds that invest significantly in issuers domiciled outside the United States. Through the underlying funds in which it invests, the fund will have significant exposure to issuers domiciled outside the United States, including exposure to issuers domiciled in at least three different countries. The fund may also have exposure to issuers domiciled in emerging markets, including small capitalization issuers. The investment adviser believes that exposure to issuers domiciled outside the United States can help provide diversification when seeking long-term growth of capital. The fund may also invest in underlying funds that hold debt securities rated BB+ or below and Ba1 or below by Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations designated by the fund’s investment adviser, or unrated but determined by the fund’s investment adviser to be of equivalent quality. Debt securities rated BB+ or below and Ba1 or below are sometimes referred to as “junk bonds.”

The fund’s investment adviser seeks to create combinations of underlying funds that complement each other with a goal of achieving the fund’s investment objective of providing long-term growth of capital. In making this determination, the fund’s investment adviser considers the historical volatility and returns of the underlying funds and how various combinations would have behaved in past market environments. It also considers, among other topics, current market conditions and the investment positions of the underlying funds.

The fund’s investment adviser periodically reviews the investment strategies and asset mix of the underlying funds. The investment adviser will also consider whether overall market conditions and the effect of the managed risk strategy would favor a change in the exposure of the fund to various asset types or geographic regions. Based on these considerations, the investment adviser may make adjustments to underlying fund holdings by adjusting the percentage of individual underlying funds within the fund, or adding or removing underlying funds. The investment adviser may also determine not to change the underlying fund allocations, particularly in response to short-term market movements, if in its opinion the combination of underlying funds is appropriate to meet the fund’s investment objective.

1     Portfolio Series — American Funds Global Growth Portfolio / Summary prospectus

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Principal risks

This section describes the principal risks associated with the fund’s principal investment strategies. You may lose money by investing in the fund. The likelihood of loss may be greater if you invest for a shorter period of time. Investors in the fund should have a long-term perspective and be able to tolerate potentially sharp declines in value.

Allocation risk — Investments in the fund are subject to risks related to the investment adviser’s allocation choices. The selection of the underlying funds and the allocation of the fund’s assets could cause the fund to lose value or its results to lag relevant benchmarks or other funds with similar objectives.

Fund structure — The fund invests in underlying funds and incurs expenses related to the underlying funds. In addition, investors in the fund will incur fees to pay for certain expenses related to the operations of the fund. An investor holding the underlying funds directly and in the same proportions as the fund would incur lower overall expenses but would not receive the benefit of the portfolio management and other services provided by the fund.

Underlying fund risks — Because the fund’s investments consist of underlying funds, the fund’s risks are directly related to the risks of the underlying funds. For this reason, it is important to understand the risks associated with investing both in the fund and the underlying funds.

Market conditions — The prices of, and the income generated by, the securities held by the underlying funds may decline – sometimes rapidly or unpredictably – due to various factors, including events or conditions affecting the general economy or particular industries; overall market changes; local, regional or global political, social or economic instability; governmental or governmental agency responses to economic conditions; and currency exchange rate, interest rate and commodity price fluctuations.

Issuer risks — The prices of, and the income generated by, securities held by the underlying funds may decline in response to various factors directly related to the issuers of such securities, including reduced demand for an issuer’s goods or services, poor management performance and strategic initiatives such as mergers, acquisitions or dispositions and the market response to any such initiatives.

Investing in growth-oriented stocks — Growth-oriented common stocks and other equity-type securities (such as preferred stocks, convertible preferred stocks and convertible bonds) may involve larger price swings and greater potential for loss than other types of investments. These risks may be even greater in the case of smaller capitalization stocks.

Investing in income-oriented stocks — Income provided by an underlying fund may be reduced by changes in the dividend policies of, and the capital resources available for dividend payments at, the companies in which the underlying fund invests.

Investing outside the United States — Securities of issuers domiciled outside the United States, or with significant operations or revenues outside the United States, may lose value because of adverse political, social, economic or market developments (including social instability, regional conflicts, terrorism and war) in the countries or regions in which the issuers operate or generate revenue. These securities may also lose value due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates against the U.S. dollar and/or currencies of other countries. Issuers of these securities may be more susceptible to actions of foreign governments, such as the imposition of price controls or punitive taxes, that could adversely impact revenues. Securities markets in certain countries may be more volatile and/or less liquid than those in the United States. Investments outside the United States may also be subject to different accounting practices and different regulatory, legal and reporting standards and practices, and may be more difficult to value, than those in the United States. In addition, the value of investments outside the United States may be reduced by foreign taxes, including foreign withholding taxes on interest and dividends. Further, there may be increased risks of delayed settlement of securities purchased or sold by the underlying funds. The risks of investing outside the United States may be heightened in connection with investments in emerging markets.

Investing in emerging markets — Investing in emerging markets may involve risks in addition to and greater than those generally associated with investing in the securities markets of developed countries. For instance, developing countries may have less developed legal and accounting systems than those in developed countries. The governments of these countries may be less stable and more likely to impose capital controls, nationalize a company or industry, place restrictions on foreign ownership and on withdrawing sale proceeds of securities from the country, and/or impose punitive taxes that could adversely affect the prices of securities. In addition, the economies of these countries may be dependent on relatively few industries that are more susceptible to local and global changes. Securities markets in these countries can also be relatively small and have substantially lower trading volumes. As a result, securities issued in these countries may be more volatile and less liquid, and may be more difficult to value, than securities issued in countries with more developed economies and/or markets. Less certainty with respect to security valuations may lead to additional challenges and risks in calculating an underlying fund’s net asset value and, accordingly, in calculating the underlying fund’s net asset value. Additionally, there may be increased settlement risks for transactions in local securities.

Investing in small companies — Investing in smaller companies may pose additional risks. For example, it is often more difficult to value or dispose of small company stocks and more difficult to obtain information about smaller companies than about larger companies. Furthermore, smaller companies often have limited product lines, operating histories, markets and/or financial resources, may be dependent on one or a few key persons for management, and can be more susceptible to losses. Moreover, the prices of their stocks may be more volatile than stocks of larger, more established companies.

Portfolio Series — American Funds Global Growth Portfolio / Summary prospectus     2

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Investing in debt instruments — The prices of, and the income generated by, bonds and other debt securities held by an underlying fund may be affected by changing interest rates and by changes in the effective maturities and credit ratings of these securities.

Rising interest rates will generally cause the prices of bonds and other debt securities to fall. Falling interest rates may cause an issuer to redeem, call or refinance a debt security before its stated maturity, which may result in the fund having to reinvest the proceeds in lower yielding securities. Longer maturity debt securities generally have greater sensitivity to changes in interest rates and may be subject to greater price fluctuations than shorter maturity debt securities.

Bonds and other debt securities are also subject to credit risk, which is the possibility that the credit strength of an issuer will weaken and/or an issuer of a debt security will fail to make timely payments of principal or interest and the security will go into default. Lower quality debt securities generally have higher rates of interest and may be subject to greater price fluctuations than higher quality debt securities. Credit risk is gauged, in part, by the credit ratings of the debt securities in which an underlying fund invests. However, ratings are only the opinions of the rating agencies issuing them and are not guarantees as to credit quality or an evaluation of market risk. The underlying funds’ investment adviser relies on its own credit analysts to research issuers and issues in seeking to mitigate various credit and default risks.

Investing in lower rated debt instruments — Lower rated bonds and other lower rated debt securities generally have higher rates of interest and involve greater risk of default or price declines due to changes in the issuer’s creditworthiness than those of higher quality debt securities. The market prices of these securities may fluctuate more than the prices of higher quality debt securities and may decline significantly in periods of general economic difficulty. These risks may be increased with respect to investments in junk bonds.

Thinly traded securities — There may be little trading in the secondary market for particular bonds or other debt securities, which may make them more difficult to value, acquire or sell.

Management — The investment adviser to the fund and to the underlying funds actively manages each underlying fund’s investments. Consequently, the underlying funds are subject to the risk that the methods and analyses employed by the investment adviser in this process may not produce the desired results. This could cause an underlying fund to lose value or its investment results to lag relevant benchmarks or other funds with similar objectives.

Your investment in the fund is not a bank deposit and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency, entity or person. You should consider how this fund fits into your overall investment program.

Investment results

Because the fund does not have a full calendar year of investment operations, information regarding investment results is not available as of the date of this prospectus.

Management

Investment adviser Capital Research and Management Company^SM

Portfolio oversight committee The investment adviser’s Portfolio Oversight Committee develops the allocation approach and selects the underlying funds in which the fund invests. The members of the Portfolio Oversight Committee are:

Investment professional/ Series title (if applicable)	Investment professional experience in this fund	Primary title with investment adviser
Alan N. Berro President	1 year	Partner – Capital World Investors
John H. Smet Senior Vice President	1 year	Partner – Capital Fixed Income Investors
Joanna F. Jonsson	1 year	Partner – Capital World Investors
James B. Lovelace	1 year	Partner – Capital Research Global Investors
Wesley K.-S. Phoa	1 year	Partner – Capital Fixed Income Investors
Andrew B. Suzman	1 year	Partner – Capital World Investors
Bradley J. Vogt	1 year	Partner – Capital Research Global Investors

3     Portfolio Series — American Funds Global Growth Portfolio / Summary prospectus

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Tax information

See your variable insurance contract prospectus for information regarding the federal income tax treatment of your variable insurance contract and related distributions.

Payments to broker-dealers and other financial intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as an insurance company), the fund and the fund’s distributor or its affiliates may pay the intermediary for the sale of fund shares and related services. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your individual financial advisor to recommend the fund over another investment. Ask your individual financial advisor or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information. The fund is not sold directly to the general public but instead is offered as an underlying investment option for variable insurance contracts. In addition to payments described above, the fund and its related companies may make payments to the sponsoring insurance company (or its affiliates) for distribution and/or other services. These payments may be a factor that the insurance company considers in including the fund as an underlying investment option in the variable insurance contract. The prospectus (or other offering document) for your variable insurance contract may contain additional information about these payments.

INS2IPX-104-0516P Printed in USA CGD/AFD/8024	Investment Company File No. 811-03857

 

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