Browsing: Longevity and Mortality Risk Transfer

GMP Equalisation is continuing to be a significant hurdle for DB pension schemes on the final stretch to buyout but with the right tools, support and technology, these obstacles don’t have to derail transactions.

The pension risk transfer market in the UK has delivered plenty of talking points in 2025 so far in what has been another busy year for the space. Greg Winterton spoke to Pretty Sagoo, Managing Director of Defined Benefit Solutions at Just Group, to get a risk buyer’s perspective on the current state of the market and the outlook for the balance of the year.

Dutch schemes are moving to buy-outs to sidestep recently introduced rules that require all defined benefit plans to runoff and switch to defined contributions frameworks by the start of 2028.

£1m bulk purchase annuity buy-in, completed in June 2025, insures the benefits of all members of the scheme.

Finalised in July 2025, the transaction secures the benefits of more than 440 members of the scheme.

The transaction secures the benefits of all the 100 deferred members and 382 pensioner members in the BDO ES Pension Scheme as well as all 191 deferred members and 330 pensioner members of the BDO Pension Scheme.

The buy-in insures the benefits of the remaining 105 uninsured members of the Scheme.

The latest Milliman Pension Buyout Index shows that during July, the estimated cost to transfer retiree pension risk to an insurer in a competitive bidding process inched down from 100.2% to 100.1% of a plan’s accounting liabilities.

The transaction, completed in July 2025, included a £620m in-specie asset transfer of UK and US corporate bonds and UK gilts.

The transaction completed in March 2025 and secures the benefits of all 679 scheme members, comprising 299 pensioners and dependents as well as 380 deferred members.