Author: Aaron Woolner
The UK’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries includes data from as far back as 1825 when calculating its life expectancy tables. Fundamental to those estimations is the importance of the correlation between income and life expectancy. The effects of this relationship are still apparent today. Research by the McKinsey Global Institute shows that the GDP per capita in the Polish IT hub Wroclaw increased from $23,000 in 2000 to $55,000 two decades later. Wroclaw’s citizens saw their average life expectancy increase by 4.9 years in tandem with the influx of high paying jobs from tech giants such as Alphabet and…
The trustees of RiverStone Management Pension and Life Assurance Plan, which is sponsored by Brit Insurance, have completed a £95m (S117M) full buy-in with Standard Life. According to the press release announcing the deal, this is the second buy-in conducted by a pension scheme backed by Brit Insurance following a similar size deal with the Brit Group Services Limited Defined Benefits Pension Scheme in 2022. The latest deal covers all benefits of the scheme’s 388 members. According to the release, the trustees were able to negotiate an enhanced level of inflation protection for members as a result of the competitive nature…
UK Regulators analyse Funded Reinsurance risks in Pension Risk Transfers; PRA raises portfolio recapture concerns.
Last orders have been called for the UK pension fund of diamond specialist De Beers with a £870m ($1.1bn) full buy-in deal that will see all current pensioners and deferred members transferred to Pensions Insurance Corporation (PIC). In a 2 April news release, PIC said that 1464 current pensioners and 473 deferred members of the scheme, which is sponsored by De Beers UK, would transfer across from the pension fund. Hymans Robertson and Barnett Waddingham provided the De Beers trustees with actuarial advice on the transaction. PIC was given legal advice by CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang (CCMNO) and the De…
US tech firm Unisys has signed a $200m bulk purchase annuity (BPA) deal with F&G Annuities & Life, the second transaction between the two parties in the last 12 months, following on from the $250m BPA deal with F&G announced last November The deal was signed on 28th March, transferring 3,800 retirees and beneficiaries across to F&G. Unisys said the deal will result in a first quarter one-time, non-cash, pre-tax settlement charge of approximately $129m. This new deal is the latest in a series of pension de-risking moves by the Pennsylvania-headquartered firm. In 2021, Unisys agreed a $280m BPA deal…
The Ockham Pension Scheme has completed a £110m ($138m) buy-in with retirement specialists Just Group. The Ockham Pension Scheme is sponsored by insurer LV=, and the deal secures benefits for about 700 members. This is the third buy-in deal which has been sponsored by LV=, following the £40m full buy-in with Rothesay of the Teachers Assurance Group Pension Scheme in 2019, and the conversion of the LV= Employee Pension Scheme’s longevity swap into a £800m buy-in with Standard Life in 2020. LCP was appointed as de-risking adviser to the trustee, with Redington providing investment advice on the asset transfer. A&O…
The pension fund of UK retailer Next has agreed a £510m ($643m) full scheme buy-in with bulk purchase annuity (BPA) specialist Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC). This is the second deal between the two parties and follows a £100m buy-in in 2018. The completion of this new transaction means that a total of 3,600 pensioners and deferred members have now been transferred to PIC. The Next scheme trustee was advised on all aspects of the buy-in by LCP. Legal advice was provided to the trustee by Herbert Smith Freehills. Hymans Robertson and Shoosmiths advised the scheme sponsor Next plc and CMS…
M&G has announced its third bulk purchase annuity (BPA) deal since it re-entered the UK market in September 2023. On 15th March, M&G entered into a £309m ($390m) premium BPA deal with a UK-based entity. In line with the firm’s first transactions, the identity of the ceding firm was not revealed in the deal’s announcement. In its full year results, M&G also said that it is aiming to achieve up to £1.5bn in BPA sales a year from now. M&G was formed from the demerger of M&G Prudential in 2019, with the UK insurance business becoming part of M&G. Prudential…
RGA has inked a JPY700bn ($4.6bn) longevity focussed asset-intensive reinsurance deal with Japan Post Insurance Company. The deal will see an RGA affiliate provide coinsurance for an in-force block of Japan Post’s individual life annuities. RGA said in a release announcing the deal that it was “a first-of-its-kind coinsurance transaction in Japan.”. While asset-backed reinsurance deals in Europe and North America have been at record levels in recent years off the back of high levels of pension risk transfer activity, this trend has not been apparent in the Asia Pacific market. This is changing. In December last year, the International…
Obesity is a killer, but nobody dies directly from being overweight. Instead, excess pounds are linked to a higher risk of getting type II diabetes, developing fatty liver, and having a stroke, while research links obesity to up to 8% of all cancer cases. Obesity is a factor in all of the four main non-Covid causes of deaths in the UK in 2022, while diabetes itself is a risk factor for heart disease, the leading cause of mortality worldwide. The number of overweight people is so high globally that the World Health Organisation has dubbed it an, ‘obesity epidemic’. “There’s…