October 2025
30Oct

Risks escalate for U.S. retirement plans due to unregulated private credit funds and new rules opening them up to retirement savings accounts

When the privately owned auto parts manufacturer First Brands Group earlier this month began to be unable to service its $6.1 billion debt load, the financial press began to pick up on the story—not because it was so unique or important to the U.S. economy, but rather because various financial institutions, including the Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG, were admitting that their exposure to the company was higher and more complicated than they had previously shared, through their...

October 30, 2025
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23Oct

MetLife Finds Most Companies Intend to Divest Pension Liabilities Within 5 Years

September marked the sixth consecutive month of improvement for corporate pension funding, according to Zorast Wadia, a principal and actuary at Milliman. The funded status of the largest 100 corporate defined benefit plans reached 106.5%, its highest level since October 2007—just before the global financial crisis. 2025 has been a “tailwind of a year for pension finances,” says Brian Donohue, a partner in October Three Consulting. There is still time left in the year’s fourth quarter, and he says companies...

October 23, 2025
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14Oct

Is longevity a risk for pension insurers and schemes?

Insurers are better placed to pool and manage longevity risk than pension schemes, according to Ash Williams, risk settlement partner at XPS Group. Speaking on a panel at the XPS Group’s 2025 Pensions Conference, Williams explained that insurers have three tools in their box when it comes to managing longevity risk. Longevity risk is the chance that life expectancies and survival rates exceed expectations, resulting in greater-than-anticipated cash flow needs on the part of insurance companies or pension funds. Williams said insurers...

October 14, 2025
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08Oct

Macroeconomic Conditions Continue to Drive Pension Risk Transfer

Amid ongoing market conditions and economic uncertainty, U.S. plan sponsors are moving decisively to reduce pension risk. According to the newly released MetLife’s 2025 Pension Risk Transfer (PRT) Poll, a record 94% of defined benefit (DB) pension plan sponsors with de-risking goals intend to fully divest their pension liabilities with 80% planning to do so within five years. The company’s latest research shows market volatility is driving plan sponsors to de-risk, which, coupled with economic trends and stronger plan funding, is...

October 8, 2025
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September 2025
23Sep

US. Pension Risk Transfer drops in first half

For the second consecutive quarter, activity in the pension risk transfer (PRT) market declined, resulting in sales of $11.5 billion through 2Q, a 56% decrease year-over-year, according to LIMRA’s U.S. Group Annuity Risk Transfer Survey. While the industry is off to a slower start compared to the last few years, which was widely anticipated by most industry insiders, Nationwide’s head of PRT, Paula Cole expects marketplace activity to pick up in the second half of the year. Despite this...

September 23, 2025
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04Sep

Pension risk transfer: The U.S. and the U.K. compared

Growth in the pension risk transfer (PRT) industry is accelerating, with new research forecasting insurance companies will secure more than $335 billion of liabilities across the U.K. and the U.S. markets over the next three years. But with many insurers now looking at opportunities in both countries, it is vital to recognize the differences between the U.K. and the U.S., particularly when it comes to deferred lives. PRT transactions — often described as bulk purchase annuity deals in the U.K. —...

September 4, 2025
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August 2025
11Aug

Rolls-Royce offloads UK pension fund in £4.3bn deal with PIC

Rolls-Royce has sealed a £4.3bn deal with insurance specialist Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) to offload its UK pension scheme as the engineering giant presses ahead with simplifying its balance sheet. The deal, which was announced on Sunday, covers the remaining pension obligations of 36,000 members — including 15,000 current pensioners and 21,000 deferred members — and marks the largest pension risk transfer in the UK this year. It comes as the Tufan Erginbilgic, chief executive of the FTSE 100 darling, moves to slim...

August 11, 2025
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July 2025
28Jul

UK. ‘More to be done’ to improve risk transfer process, SPP says

There is “more that could be done” in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in the risk transfer process, the Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) has stated, despite numerous developments in this area over recent years. The report, Less friction, better transfers: creating a more agile risk transfer process, noted that the UK bulk annuity market has continued to go from strength to strength, and targeting an insurance transaction remains an attractive option for many. Citing data from WTW, the SPP highlighted that the...

July 28, 2025
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16Jul

PRT Market Momentum Expected to Continue

Pension risk transfers will be among the fastest-growing product lines in the life insurance sector, J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. found in its June 27 “North America Equity Research” report. According to the firm, many U.S. private sector employers that froze and/or closed their defined benefit pension plans as a benefit for employees more than a decade ago still have legacy plans, totaling $3.2 trillion in assets. Many firms have shifted their DB liabilities to insurers through PRT transactions. The PRT market...

July 16, 2025
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09Jul

Demand for pension risk transfer deals increases around the world

Morningstar DBRS has taken note of the pension risk transfer (PRT) market globally in a new commentary report published July 7. In it, they discuss the skepticism some plan members in the United States have about the deals (and the resulting lawsuits) and the regulatory attention being paid to such deals in the United Kingdom. In Canada they note a jump in market volumes in 2024, saying they anticipate demand for such deals will remain steady. “With life expectancy trending higher...

July 9, 2025
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