Consulting firm Milliman’s latest Milliman Pension Buyout Index shows that during November, the estimated cost to transfer retiree pension risk to an insurer in a competitive bidding process remained level, at 100.1% of a plan’s accounting liabilities (accumulated benefit obligation, or ABO).
During the same time period, the average annuity purchase cost across all insurers in our index also remained the same as the prior month, at 103.3%. The competitive bidding process is estimated to save plan sponsors about 3.2% of PRT costs as of November 30, 2025.
“No movement in the MPBI as we saw stable rates throughout the month, but 100.1% on the competitive index is not a bad place to be,” said Jake Pringle, Milliman Principal and Co-Author of the MPBI.
“Third quarter PRT sales of $10.6 billion showed an increase in buy-in activity, along with an overall higher number of smaller and midsized buy-out contracts for the quarter.”
The MPBI compares the FTSE Above Median AA Curve to the annuity purchase composite interest rates from nine insurers to estimate the competitive and average costs of a PRT annuity de-risking strategy.