Author: Greg Winterton

British trade body the Equity Release Council (ERC) published its most recent quarterly update this week, showing a market that has returned to growth for the first time in 12 months. The ERC said that total lending increased by 8% in the third quarter of 2023, with £716m of deals being closed, up from £663m in Q2. The number of new plans agreed in Q3 was 7,379, up 10% on Q2’s 6,682. Of these, there was a broad split when it comes to product choice: 53% opted for drawdown lifetime mortgages, taking an initial withdrawal up-front with more held in…

UK consulting firm Hymans Robertson recently surveyed 250 finance and pension decision-makers in UK companies, covering a range of topics including: respondents’ strategic pension priorities over the next few years, respondents’ views on defined benefit (DB) endgame strategies, the impact of the Pension Schemes Act 2021 on company planning and financial activity, respondents’ views on future retirement provision and government policy, and corporate and trustee governance. The results suggests that almost half (48%) of UK defined benefit pension schemes intend to insure their plans via a buy-out solution in the next decade. However, 45% of these schemes are concerned about…

Aquarian Holdings is taking a minority stake in life settlements investor Obra Capital. Aquarian is a diversified holding company with interests in businesses including insurance, asset management, real estate and technology; the firm is replacing Reverence Capital, which has been an investor in Obra since 2019. “This transaction provides Aquarian with access to additional alternative investment capabilities, strengthening our expanding financial services platform,” said Rudy Sahay, founder and Managing Partner at Aquarian. “We look forward to working with Obra as it grows and benefitting from the many synergies between our firms.” Obra Capital – previously Vida Capital until a re-brand…

The rising interest rate environment of the past 18 months has had a significant impact on the alternative investment industry, with fundraising across all the main segments – hedge funds, private equity, private debt, real assets – falling in 2022 and then again this year as global capital allocators pivot to assets that are perceived as having lower risk, higher liquidity and now, for the first time in more than a decade, an acceptable yield.  The impact has certainly been felt in the life settlement market.  “You can get a four-week US treasury bill for around 5% at the moment,”…

Life Risk News UK Pension Risk Transfer Consultants roundtable

The life settlement industry tends to measure its size based on the US dollar value of policies transacted in the space’s secondary market, which was $4.5bn in 2022, according to data published in the summer by The Life Settlement Report, part of The Deal, which uses data from state insurance departments to collect this information.  The industry’s tertiary market is, by most accounts, much larger. And almost all funds will transact every year. But exactly how large is the market? It’s difficult to know because of a lack of publicly available information. And specifically, we’re looking at AUM here, so…

Consumer awareness in the secondary life settlement market is a perpetual hot topic in the industry. Greg Winterton spoke with Michael Freedman, CEO at life settlements provider Lighthouse Life, to get his take on the current state of consumer awareness in the space and what could be done to improve.  GW: Michael, let’s start at the beginning. If you were grading the current state of consumer awareness in the space, what grade would you give, and why?  MF: Greg, thanks for the opportunity to share some thoughts related to consumer awareness in life settlements.    Consumers’ – particularly seniors’ – awareness…

The UK government’s plan to reform the country’s insurance regulatory regime took its latest step on 28th September with the publication of the Bank of England Prudential Regulatory Authority’s (PRA) Consultation Paper regarding the planned changes to matching adjustment (MA) portfolios.  One of the key points that British politicians are trying to push here is that they want the insurance sector to be able to invest in a wider range of assets than they currently can (because of the restrictions imposed by the existing Solvency II regulation). Pursuant to that objective, one of the most significant changes comes in the…

The US is now the only remaining nationwide secondary market for consumer life insurance policies. That’s because the German Traded Life Policy (TLP) market has gone the way of the Traded Endowment Policy (TEP) market in the UK – i.e., it is now largely defunct. Unlike the TEP market, however, it’s the macroeconomic environment, not the regulatory one, that is responsible for the demise. Higher interest rates have essentially put paid to an entire industry that was, essentially, an interest rate arbitrage play. Policies paying interest rates of, say, 3%, were purchased during the era of central bank zero interest…

Life insurance companies have a reputation for being something akin to an oil tanker – big, and slow. But their approach to incorporating generative AI (GenAI) into various functions of their businesses can hardly be claimed to be thus. A snap poll conducted by technology research and consulting firm, Celent, in June this year revealed that nearly 10% of life insurers in the United States were already using GenAI in production. And 50% said that they would be either using GenAI in a live environment or in a test environment before the year is out. The technology is being used…