DWS Unconstrained Income VIP

DWS Unconstrained Income VIP

Investment Objective

The fund seeks a high total return.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

This table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the fund. This information does not reflect fees associated with the separate account that invests in the fund or any variable life insurance policy or variable annuity contract for which the fund is an investment option. These fees will increase expenses.

SHAREHOLDER FEES

(paid directly from your investment)

Shareholder Fees (USD $)	DWS Unconstrained Income VIP Class A
SHAREHOLDER FEES (paid directly from your investment)	none

ANNUAL FUND OPERATING EXPENSES (expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment)

Annual Fund Operating Expenses	DWS Unconstrained Income VIP Class A
Management fee	0.55%
Distribution/service (12b-1) fees	none
Other expenses	0.47%
Total annual fund operating expenses	1.02%
Fee waiver/expense reimbursement	0.26%
Total annual fund operating expenses after fee waiver/expense reimbursement	0.76%

The Advisor has contractually agreed through April 30, 2015 to waive its fees and/or reimburse certain operating expenses of the fund to the extent necessary to maintain the fund's total annual operating expenses at a ratio no higher than 0.76% (excluding certain expenses such as extraordinary expenses, taxes, brokerage and interest expenses) for Class A shares. The agreement may only be terminated with the consent of the fund's Board.

EXAMPLE

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in 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 (including one year of capped expenses in each period) remain the same. This example does not reflect any fees or sales charges imposed by a variable contract for which the fund is an investment option. If they were included, your costs would be higher.

Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

Expense Example (USD $)	1 Year	3 Years	5 Years	10 Years
DWS Unconstrained Income VIP Class A	78	299	538	1,224

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 may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example, but can affect the fund's performance.

Portfolio turnover rate for fiscal year 2013: 183%.

Principal Investment Strategy

Main investments. Under normal circumstances, the fund invests mainly in fixed income securities issued by both US and foreign corporations and governments. The credit quality of the fund's investments may vary; the fund may invest up to 100% of total assets in either investment-grade fixed income securities or in junk bonds, which are those below the fourth highest credit rating category (that is, grade BB/Ba and below). The fund may also invest in emerging markets securities, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, adjustable rate loans that have a senior right to payment ("senior loans") and other floating rate debt securities and dividend-paying common stocks.

Management process. In deciding which types of securities to buy and sell, portfolio management typically weighs a number of factors against each other, from economic outlooks and possible interest rate movements to changes in supply and demand within the fixed income securities market. In choosing individual fixed income securities, portfolio management considers how they are structured and uses independent analysis of issuers' creditworthiness.

Portfolio management will not be constrained in the management of the fund relative to an index and may shift the allocations of the fund's holdings, favoring different types of securities at different times, while still maintaining variety in terms of the companies and industries represented in the fund's holdings. Total return is a combination of capital appreciation and current income.

Derivatives. Portfolio management generally may use futures contracts, options on interest rate swaps, options on interest rate futures or interest rate swaps, which are types of derivatives (a contract whose value is based on, for example, indices, currencies or securities), for duration management (i.e., reducing or increasing the sensitivity of the fund's portfolio to interest rate changes) or for non-hedging purposes to seek to enhance potential gains. Portfolio management may also use (i) option contracts in order to gain exposure to a particular market or security, to seek to increase the fund's income, or to hedge against changes in a particular market or security, (ii) total return swap transactions to seek to enhance potential gains by increasing or reducing the fund's exposure to a particular sector or market, or (iii) credit default swaps to seek to increase the fund's income, to gain exposure to a bond issuer's credit quality characteristics without directly investing in the bond or to hedge the risk of default on bonds held in the fund's portfolio. In addition, portfolio management generally may use forward currency contracts (i) to hedge its exposure to changes in foreign currency exchange rates on its foreign currency denominated portfolio holdings; (ii) to facilitate transactions in foreign currency denominated securities; or (iii) for non-hedging purposes to seek to enhance potential gains.

The fund may also use various types of derivatives (i) for hedging purposes; (ii) for risk management; (iii) for non-hedging purposes to seek to enhance potential gains; or (iv) as a substitute for direct investment in a particular asset class or to keep cash on hand to meet shareholder redemptions.

Securities Lending. The fund may lend securities (up to one-third of total assets) to approved institutions.

Active Trading. The fund may trade actively. This could raise transaction costs (thus lowering returns).

Main Risks

There are several risk factors that could hurt the fund's performance, cause you to lose money or cause the fund's performance to trail that of other investments. The fund may not achieve its investment objective, and is not intended to be a complete investment program. An investment in the fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency.

Interest rate risk. When interest rates rise, prices of debt securities generally decline. The longer the duration of the fund's debt securities, the more sensitive it will be to interest rate changes. (As a general rule, a 1% rise in interest rates means a 1% fall in value for every year of duration.)

Credit risk. The fund's performance could be hurt if an issuer of a debt security suffers an adverse change in financial condition that results in a payment default, security downgrade or inability to meet a financial obligation. Credit risk is greater for lower-rated securities.

Because the issuers of high-yield debt securities or junk bonds (debt securities rated below the fourth highest credit rating category) may be in uncertain financial health, the prices of their debt securities can be more vulnerable to bad economic news, or even the expectation of bad news, than investment-grade debt securities. High-yield debt securities are considered speculative, and credit risk for high-yield securities is greater than for higher-rated securities.

Senior loans risk. Senior loans may not be rated by a rating agency, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission or any state securities commission or listed on any national securities exchange. Therefore, there may be less publicly available information about them than for registered or exchange-listed securities. Also, because portfolio management relies mainly on its own evaluation of the creditworthiness of borrowers, the fund is particularly dependent on portfolio management's analytical abilities. Senior loans involve other risks, including conflict of interest risk, credit risk, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, and prepayment and extension risk.

Conflict of interest risk. Affiliates of the Advisor may participate in the primary and secondary market for senior loans. Because of limitations imposed by applicable law, the presence of the Advisor's affiliates in the senior loan market may restrict the fund's ability to participate in a restructuring of a senior loan or to acquire some senior loans, or affect the timing or price of such acquisition.

Prepayment and extension risk. When interest rates fall, issuers of high interest debt obligations may pay off the debts earlier than expected (prepayment risk), and the fund may have to reinvest the proceeds at lower yields. When interest rates rise, issuers of lower interest debt obligations may pay off the debts later than expected (extension risk), thus keeping the fund's assets tied up in lower interest debt obligations. Ultimately, any unexpected behavior in interest rates could increase the volatility of the fund's share price and yield and could hurt fund performance.

Foreign investment risk. The fund faces the risks inherent in foreign investing. Adverse political, economic or social developments could undermine the value of the fund's investments or prevent the fund from realizing the full value of its investments. Financial reporting standards for companies based in foreign markets differ from those in the US. Additionally, foreign securities markets generally are smaller and less liquid than US markets. To the extent that the fund invests in non-US dollar denominated foreign securities, changes in currency exchange rates may affect the US dollar value of foreign securities or the income or gain received on these securities.

Emerging markets risk. Foreign investment risks are greater in emerging markets than in developed markets. Investments in emerging markets are often considered speculative.

Security selection risk. The securities in the fund's portfolio may decline in value. Portfolio management could be wrong in its analysis of industries, companies, economic trends, the relative attractiveness of different securities or other matters.

Derivatives risk. Risks associated with derivatives include the risk that the derivative is not well correlated with the security, index or currency to which it relates; the risk that derivatives may result in losses or missed opportunities; the risk that the fund will be unable to sell the derivative because of an illiquid secondary market; the risk that a counterparty is unwilling or unable to meet its obligation; and the risk that the derivative transaction could expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund's exposure to the market and magnify potential losses.

Counterparty risk. A financial institution or other counterparty with whom the fund does business, or that underwrites, distributes or guarantees any investments or contracts that the fund owns or is otherwise exposed to, may decline in financial health and become unable to honor its commitments. This could cause losses for the fund or could delay the return or delivery of collateral or other assets to the fund.

Liquidity risk. In certain situations, it may be difficult or impossible to sell an investment in an orderly fashion at an acceptable price.

Pricing risk. If market conditions make it difficult to value some investments, the fund may value these investments using more subjective methods, such as fair value pricing. In such cases, the value determined for an investment could be different than the value realized upon such investment's sale. As a result, you could pay more than the market value when buying fund shares or receive less than the market value when selling fund shares.

Securities lending risk. Any decline in the value of a portfolio security that occurs while the security is out on loan is borne by the fund and will adversely affect performance. Also, there may be delays in recovery of securities loaned or even a loss of rights in the collateral should the borrower of the securities fail financially while holding the security.

Past Performance

How a fund's returns vary from year to year can give an idea of its risk; so can comparing fund performance to overall market performance (as measured by an appropriate market index). Past performance may not indicate future results. All performance figures below assume that dividends were reinvested. For more recent performance figures, go to dws-investments.com (the Web site does not form a part of this prospectus) or call the phone number included in this prospectus. This information doesn't reflect fees associated with the separate account that invests in the fund or any variable life insurance policy or variable annuity contract for which the fund is an investment option. These fees will reduce returns.

Prior to May 31, 2013, the fund had a sub-advisor and a different investment management team that operated with a different investment strategy. Prior to September 22, 2011, the fund was named DWS Strategic Income VIP and operated with a different objective and investment strategy. Performance would have been different if the fund's current investment strategy had been in effect.

CALENDAR YEAR TOTAL RETURNS (%) (Class A)

Best Quarter: 9.43%, Q2 2009  Worst Quarter: -5.06%, Q3 2008
Year-to-Date as of 3/31/2014: 2.08%

Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended 12/31/2013 expressed as a %)

Average Annual Total Returns DWS Unconstrained Income VIP	Class Inception	1 Year	5 Years	10 Years
Class A	May 01, 1997	(1.04%)	9.74%	6.49%
Barclays U.S. Universal Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)		(1.35%)	5.41%	4.85%
Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)		(2.02%)	4.44%	4.55%

The Advisor believes the additional Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index provides comparative performance over a ten year period with a broad-based fixed-income market index.