Longevity risk transfer news

The longevity risk transfer market is one area of reinsurance and risk transfer that is slated for growth during 2011. Industry experts are saying that the sector which involves pension scheme buy-outs, re/insurance, bulk annuities and longevity swaps is expected to grow, and since Swiss Re successfully transferred $50m of longevity trend risk to the […]

To tackle the issue of longevity risk, the risk of an increasingly ageing population and the impact that will have on pension liabilities, the re/insurance industry will need to work closely with both governments and capital markets. On its own the re/insurance industry does not have the capacity to assume the amount of longevity risk […]

Goldman Sachs has completed its acquisition of Paternoster, an insurance company specialising in pension risk transfer. Goldman Sachs already owns Rothesay Life, another specialist in the pension risk transfer market. The two companies will remain separate for a short time until a merger of the two can be arranged.

Towers Watson, the global professional services company, has published its five predictions for the pension market in 2011. Their fourth prediction is for an increase in longevity risk hedging among pension schemes and they state that improved access to tools which allow pension schemes to evaluate their longevity risk exposure should enable more schemes to […]

The UK governments Department for Work and Pensions has released some data showing their latest projections for how many citizens living in the UK will make it to age 100 and how many centenarians there will be in the future. The stark figures show longevity increasing rapidly and should serve as a warning to pension […]

Swiss Re has announced the completion of the first ever longevity trend catastrophe bond with the completion of Kortis Capital Ltd. The deal transfers $50m of longevity trend risk over to the capital markets for Swiss Re using the familiar structure more commonly utilised for natural catastrophe risk.

Longevity risk was one of the topics discussed at the recent Swiss Re ILS media briefing Artemis attended. It’s a topic that is gaining increasing attention from re/insurers and also pension funds and it is a huge potential market which could open up to risk transfer to the capital markets.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to begin a research project looking into longevity risk in January. One of the aims of the research (according to Global Pensions) is to look into the possibility of establishing government issued life expectancy indices.

Insurer Aviva has joined the Life & Longevity Markets Association (LLMA) taking the number of members of the still new association up to eleven. The LLMA is a not for profit association dedicated to promoting liquidity in the traded longevity and mortality risk markets.

Metlife has published a study undertaken by its U.S. and UK businesses which compare the current state of pension fund risk management and pension fund sponsor and trustee attitudes to risk between the U.S. and the UK.