On the go: Pension Insurance Corporation saw a near doubling of new pension insurance business to £7.1bn of premiums (2017: £3.7bn), for clients including BHS, Siemens and Rentokil, its parent company's 2018 results published today revealed.
A record £5.6bn of longevity exposure was also reinsured during the year, with 74 per cent of PIC’s reserves reinsured for longevity risk in total at year end (2017: 73 per cent).
A total of 192,100 pension fund members are now insured (2017: 151,600) with the insurer.
Pension Insurance Corporation Group also saw profits before tax rise to £477m in 2018, from £383m in 2017.
Other financial highlights of its results for the year ending 31 December 2018 show embedded value of £3,638m (2017: £2,932m), up 24 per cent in the year with assets held to meet solvency and risk margin of £5.2bn (2017: £4.3bn)
The PIC solvency capital ratio has also improved to 167 per cent (2017: 160 per cent)
And in February 2019, PIC was re-assigned an Insurer Financial Strength credit rating of A+ by Fitch.
Commenting on the results, Tracy Blackwell, chief executive officer of PIC, said: “The Group had an outstanding year, with all parts of the business pulling together to complete £7.1bn of new business, almost double the amount that we transacted in 2017. Backing this record level of new business was the reinsurance of £5.6bn of longevity risk, a record, as well as £2.5bn invested directly in areas like social housing and renewable energy, also a record.”
She added: “It is quite amazing that in what was the tenth anniversary of our first transaction, signed in the summer of 2008, the overall value of the business, as measured under embedded value, now stands at £3.6bn and we have a portfolio of £31.4bn of financial investments.”
These rosy results followed Legal & General Investment Management’s from yesterday, where pension risk transfer deals had a significant impact on performance with sales of £9.1bn (2017 £3.9bn).
However, one cloud on the horizon is the arrival of the new superfunds which may in future years divert business away from insurers.
