Q&A: Chris Wells, Managing Editor, Longevity and Mortality Investor

Longevity and Mortality Investor (LMI) is the new name for Life Risk News. Greg Winterton caught up with Chris Wells, Managing Editor at LMI, to discuss the reasons behind the rebrand, his thoughts on how the longevity and mortality markets have evolved in recent years, and plans for the future. 

GW: Chris, let’s start with the obvious. Why is the magazine re-branding? 

CW: The decision to rebrand Life Risk News to Longevity and Mortality Investor reflects the evolution of the space in the past few years. When we began, we wanted, in part, to highlight the multitude of markets where either longevity risk or mortality risk was present. But increasingly, the capital markets are taking a more strategic approach to this space – just look at the reports of North American investors buying UK insurers in the pension risk transfer market, for example. The new name/brand is designed to better align our coverage with how the market is behaving. 

GW: Will there be any significant changes to the output of the magazine? 

CW: That depends on how you define significant. We will still be covering everything we currently do, but there will be more of it, and we’ll be tweaking the focus to be a little tighter in terms of being more investor-oriented than generalist oriented. There will also be visual changes to the website and the email newsletter, but these are branding changes of course, as opposed to content-related ones. 

GW: What is your main observation about how this space has evolved since you launched Life Risk News back in 2022? 

CW: The blurring of the lines between annuity/life insurers and asset managers. We’ve seen a few instances of large, brand-name alternative investment firms buying or partnering with life insurers in a few different ways. While their motivation is access to premium payments that they can use to invest, the growth in the aggregate dollar amount that the annuity/life/asset manager Venn diagram manages compared to just a couple of years ago is significant. Secondly, there has been a notable resilience of established secondary life markets such as life settlements, structured settlements and equity release. Even with rates at historical highs these markets have demonstrated continued utility to consumers looking to release liquidity from private assets and continued support from the capital markets to provide this.  

GW: When you originally launched Life Risk News, one of the reasons was to provide free-to-air educational content aimed at capital allocators, largely due to the lack of it at the time. Will that change at all? 

CW: No, quite the opposite, actually. Something else that has struck me since we began this endeavour is that the education level that investors have in terms of alternative credit allocations such as life settlements and life ILS when compared to, say, direct lending, needs to rise. LMI plans to continue to raise awareness of the features and benefits of these asset classes, although how we deliver that insight might adjust in the medium term. 

GW: Are there any other tangential products or services that LMI will offer as part of the re-brand? 

CW: In the short term, no, in the medium term, yes. The short term for us runs through next May, when in London on Tuesday 19th May 2026, we will host the Longevity and Mortality Investor Conference, a rebrand of our Life ILS Conference, the magazine’s flagship event. We’re tweaking the format of this event to align more closely with the magazine’s coverage and mission. 

In the medium term, then yes; we’re looking at webinars, reports, partnerships and other event opportunities. But there are no defined deadlines for those as of yet, and we’re very much focused on executing the changes we’re making to the magazine to a high level at the moment. 

GW: Lastly, Chris, what is your final message to the reader? 

CW: Firstly, we appreciate all the support we have received so far from a range of participants in the longevity and mortality markets. We’ve been afforded a lot of time and help by many people and firms. And second, we hope our readers are as excited about the way forward as we are. We think that the longevity and mortality markets represent a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity for capital markets investors in the coming decade or so and we look forward to covering the themes and topics that are of most interest to buyers and sellers of longevity and mortality risk-based assets in the years to come; we’re always open to feedback, suggestions and requests.