Browsing: Longevity and Mortality Risk Transfer
Longevity and Mortality Investor’s coverage of the longevity and mortality risk transfer market, including pension risk transfer, longevity swaps and other de-risking activities.
The Comet Pension Scheme has completed a £330m full-scheme bulk purchase annuity buy-in transaction with Canada Life. The deal secures the future benefits of 4,500 pension scheme members.
The US pension risk transfer market delivered just $11.5bn in total premium in the first half of 2025, but two transactions above $1bn in the third quarter mean that Q3 alone could end up adding $9bn to that number, according to Legal & General Retirement America.
The new longevity insurance and reinsurance arrangements cover pensioner liabilities in the Lloyds Bank Pension Scheme No.1 (£3.1bn), Lloyds Bank Pension Scheme No.2 (£0.7bn) and HBOS Final Salary Pension Scheme (£1bn).
Reasons abound as to why the inclusion of illiquid assets in the portfolios of defined benefit pension schemes can be a hindrance to the process of completing a bulk purchase annuity buy-in or buy-out in the UK but insurer appetite to capitalise on the booming pension risk transfer market means that any resistance is not as pronounced as it was previously.
The trustees of the Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited Pension and Assurance Scheme completed a c.£55m bulk purchase annuity transaction with Royal London. This transaction is Royal London’s third with Barnett Waddingham as risk transfer broker and covers more than 350 members.
Two pension schemes sponsored by CF Fertilisers UK Limited, the UK subsidiary of a global manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products for clean energy, have completed bulk purchase annuity buy-in transactions with M&G.
For those in the longevity and mortality modelling game, 2025 has provided plenty of activity to keep the actuaries busy. Greg Winterton spoke to James Hadley, Senior Consultant at Barnett Waddingham, to learn more about what is front and centre of the conversation in his world as the year draws to a close.
Deal is the second step in the BBC Pension Scheme’s phased longevity hedging programme.
Finalised in September 2025, the transaction provides long-term security for the benefits of nearly 10,000 members and secures all remaining uninsured defined benefits in the plan.
The aggregate surplus of the 4,969 schemes in the Pension Protection Fund’s 7800 Index increased by £16.2bn through October 2025, rising to £271.3bn in surplus, and the funding ratio rose by 0.7 percentage points to 129.8% and the number of schemes in surplus rose to 3,844, representing more than three-quarters (77.4%) of all schemes in the universe.