Download Life Risk News Volume 4, Issue 8, August 2025
The European Life Settlement Association (ELSA, publisher of Life Risk News) produced an update to its licensed provider matrix recently, with the headline being that providers at the smaller end of the market continued to exit it in the past 12 months. Greg Winterton spoke to Rob Haynie, Managing Director at Life Insurance Settlements, and Rainer Gruenig, CEO at Plenum Investments, to understand the impact of this trend in Does the Decline in Life Settlement Provider Numbers Impact Investors?
With a record 11 insurers vying for a slice of the defined benefit pension market in the UK that has yet to de-risk, pricing has become more competitive, so trustees can be fussier about how they select an insurer for their bulk purchase annuity contract. Mark McCord spoke to Ann Rigby, Professional Trustee and Chair at BESTrustees and Katie North-Walker, Senior Consultant at Lane Clark & Peacock to understand more about the growing importance of member experience in Member Experience Coming to the Fore in Competitive UK Pension Risk Transfer Market.
What if many aspects of aging are in fact preventable, retardable and treatable? This would seem to make the process much closer to the way many people think about diseases, in so far as they think about them at all. That is what gerontologists are examining, and so Greg Winterton spoke to Professor Richard Faragher, Professor of Biogerontology at Brighton University, to learn more about what currently excites scientists in this field – and what the longevity and mortality markets should be thinking about, in Is a Geroscience Breakthrough the Black Swan event for Life Insurers and Pensions?
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, a striking divergence has emerged in the UK: While pensioners are living longer, working-age adults are facing worsening mortality rates. James Hadley, Senior Consultant at Barnett Waddingham, considers trends in leading causes of death at working ages and provides insight on drivers behind the trends in these causes in Why Is Working-Age Mortality Worsening in the UK?, a guest article this month.
In today’s fast-moving buy-in market, pension trustees face a critical challenge: ensuring their credit investments are aligned with both market conditions and insurer expectations. Lucy Barron, Partner at Aon in London, explores why precision in credit allocation is no longer optional, but essential, in Navigating Credit Allocations for Buy-In: Why Getting it Right Matters Now, our second guest article this month.
Total US pension risk transfer new premium was $7.1bn in the first quarter of 2025, according to LIMRA’s U.S. Group Annuity Risk Transfer Sales Survey. While this is 51% lower than the record-high sales set in the first quarter of 2024, at 127 deals, the market contracted only 13% from prior year. Greg Winterton caught up with Carl Groth, Chief Risk Officer at Legal & General Retirement America, to get his thoughts on the state of the market in the US in this month’s Q&A.
Germany’s pension risk transfer market has been slow to embrace full risk transfer deals but a weakening economy and rising geopolitical instability are breathing life into the sector. Mark McCord spoke to Hanne Borst, Head of Retirement at WTW Germany, Johannes Heiniz, Senior Director of Retirement at WTW Germany and Thomas Huth, Partner at Lurse to understand more about the outlook for the space in Economic Conditions Expected to Accelerate Growth of German Pension Buy-Outs.
I hope you enjoy the latest issue of Life Risk News.
Chris Wells
Managing Editor
Life Risk News
