Author: Aaron Woolner

Standard Life has conducted a $1,3bn (£1bn) bulk purchase annuity (BPA) with two separate pension schemes linked to its fellow insurer, both plans are sponsored by subsidiaries of APi Group Corporation. Standard Life, which is part of Phoenix Group, agreed the BPA with the Chubb Pension Plan and the Chubb Security Pension Fund in June 2023 and it covers 14,000 pension members across both schemes. Barnett Waddingham was the lead actuarial and investment advisers, while legal advice was provided to both sets of Trustees by pensions advisory CMS. Standard Life’s deal with the personal and business lines insurance provider is…

The pension scheme backed by the Mabey Holding Group,a UK-based construction firm, has struck a £94m ($120m) buy-in transaction with Just Group. The deal was completed in three months and follows a series of transactions for Just Group which has  struck a £40m deal with BUT Retirement Benefits Scheme, and a £190m buy-in for the Ibstock Pension Scheme; the second one between the two firms. The Mabey pension scheme has 1000 members. Mabey Holdings, was advised by pensions management firm Isio on the deal. Isio also advised Zedra Governance, the scheme’s trustee. Osborne Clarke was legal adviser to the trustee…

Annuity and structured settlement purchasers DRB Capital has appointed Ravi Correa, who holds nearly three decades experience in the sector as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Prior to joining DRB Capital,  Correa was CFO for Angel Oak Lending, where he leveraged financing capacity to $650M at a firm with over $10B of assets under Management. Correa replaces Jerome Parsley who has acted as CFO for DRB Capital for more than a decade. It is not clear what Parsley’s next role is at this stage. In a statement released announcing the appointment DRB Capital’s CEO, Bruce Jaeger, said that Correa’s addition to…

Life settlements specialist Abacus Life has appointed Nicholas Sawuk as Managing Director who joins the firm after most recently working as the of Head of Sales at Life Policy Traders where he provided strategic solutions to institutional investors such as pension funds. Sawuk has over 20 years experience in the life settlements sector and prior to his role at Life Policy Trader he worked at a number of leading institutions in the space including: a European Life Settlement Fund with its own life settlement provider, as well as Cantor Fitzgerald’s Insurance Group’s life settlement and insurance-linked securities desk in New…

UK bank Nationwide’s pension fund has conducted a £1.7bn ($2.1bn) longevity swap with Zurich UK and Prudential Financial covering the risk of roughly 7000 members. The transaction transfers the longevity risk of approximately £1.7bn of pension scheme liabilities covering approximately 7,000 members. The transaction has been structured so that the longevity risk of the pension scheme relating to these members will be passed through to Zurich UK, to an insurance subsidiary of Prudential Financial as the reinsurer, with a limited recourse mechanism protecting Zurich UK against exposure under the transaction. Aon was the lead adviser to the Nationwide Pension Fund…

The MGM Assurance Staff Pension Plan has conducted an £80 million Bulk Purchase Annuity transaction with Standard Life, part of the UK’s largest long-term savings provider, Phoenix. The deal was completed in early March and covers 700 members of the pension scheme for staff of the now defunct The Marine and General Mutual Life Assurance Society, which was dissolved in 2018 following the transfer of its business to Scottish Friendly in 2015. The deal with MGM follows a strong year for Standard Life’s pension risk transfer business after it recorded £4.8bn of Bulk Purchase Annuity premiums in 2022. XPS Pensions…

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more high profile, insurance practitioners are taking note of the potential for the technology, but also the potential for AI bias. Insurance regulators have been concerned about the dangers posed by AI for some time. In January 2019 the New York Department of Financial Service (NYDFS) put out a circular on the: ‘Use of External Consumer Data and Information Sources in Underwriting for Life Insurance’. The circular was issued following a departmental investigation which highlighted two major problems with insurers using AI to collate external data sources for their underwriting process: the potential for unlawful…

The Harrods Group Pension Plan has signed a £400m ($635m) full scheme buy-in with insurer, Scottish Widows. The deal which secures retirement benefits for roughly 1,900 pensioners and 2,100 deferred members and comes as rising interest rates impact on pension schemes funding levels has driven activity in the pension risk transfer market to record highs. The Harrod’s trustee chair said that the deal was the culmination of a long-term strategy which has seen the scheme take a long term, low risk approach to investment risk. The chair added that by moving to a full buy-in the Harrods Pension Scheme had…

The trustees of the pension scheme for the UK arm of Dutch insurer Aegon have signed a partial buy-in deal with Scottish Widows – the first of two such deals in June for the Edinburgh-headquartered insurer. Aegon UK Staff Retirement and Death Benefit Scheme has completed a £160m ($199m) partial buy-in with Scottish Widows, which will cover a certain number of risks: interest rate, inflation and longevity. UK pension schemes with liability driven investment strategies faced serious distress in October last year when gilt yields soared following a poorly received budget by the UK’s finance minister. In a press release…

Legal & General Retirement America and Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) teamed up to strike a $309m pension risk transfer (PRT) deal with Fortune 500 firm PPG. Pittsburgh-based PPG is a paint manufacturer and the deal inked with the two insurers covers over 4,000 retirees and beneficiaries of the firm’s defined benefit pension plan. Post transfer LGRA will be the plan’s lead administrator and therefore fully responsible for the service and administration of all participants it now covers. In a press release RGA described the deal as the continuation of a decades long partnership between the two groups, with RGA…