Longevity reinsurance news

Longevity reinsurance capacity may have been overpriced last year, despite a reduction in liabilities flowing through from new mortality data which showed that mortality improvements were slowing, according to Aon Hewitt.

For pension schemes around the world looking to offload their longevity risks, the good news is that the longevity swap structure continues to evolve and options for longevity hedging continue to open up to a wider range of pensions.

New York based law firm Sadis & Goldberg LLP has announced the hiring of Gregory Hartmann to its Corporate and Financial Services Groups. Hartmann was most recently with Prudential supporting pension and longevity risk transfer.

Pension plans in Canada are expected to increasingly look to insurance and reinsurance capital to offload the risks of their pensioners living longer than expected through longevity swaps in 2017, according to a report.

Legal & General has made two appointments into its Pension Risk Transfer business, the segment where the firm assists pension schemes to de-risk, including through longevity swaps and reinsurance arrangements.

Pension fund longevity exposure is over-valued, resulting in a potential for over UK£25 billion to be wiped off the collective deficit of UK defined benefit pensions if more accurate longevity assumptions were used, according to specialist longevity risk information provider Club Vita.

Global insurance player Zurich has completed another longevity swap transaction, helping a smaller UK pension plan to cover £300 million of its longevity related pension liabilities, with SCOR providing the reinsurance capacity to back the deal.

The Canada Life Assurance Company has helped the pension plan of the Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited to a streamlined longevity swap, a $35 million transfer of longevity risk associated with its pensioners which is the smallest transaction we’ve seen at Artemis.

Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) has entered into a €1.3 billion longevity swap and reinsurance agreement with AXA France, a deal that covers over 15,000 annuitants.

Due to a dislocation in current pricing for longevity swaps, caused by lower rates of improvement in mortality in the UK, retirement and health advisory Aon Hewitt, a division of the global insurance and reinsurance broker, has warned pension schemes to delay any longevity transactions for the moment.