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...Mick McAteer, co-founder of the Financial Inclusion Centre think-tank and a former FCA board member, said the stress-test plan was “very welcome”....
...The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, which supervises insurers, declined to comment....
...The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, which oversees insurers, previously raised concerns about superfunds and regulatory arbitrage, and said they should only be used as a stepping stone...
...Their demands are intended to protect retirees, widows and orphans relying on annuities and other products from the insurers....
...It is a key differentiator,” he said, adding that Prudential was announcing a new set of corporate values in the coming weeks that had been co-created with employees....
...Built for comfort, not speed is a good slogan for annuities — an insurance product offering retirees steady, long-term income....
...“The annuity is an insurance policy against outliving one’s assets,” said Brendan Curran, SSGA’s US head of defined contribution....
...The demand drivers for long-term savings, for retirement, for protection, are very much intact, and they are only going to increase in my view as we move forward,” he said....
...and workplace insurance products such as pensions....
...Other insurers, such as Prudential, also stopped offering the products. In 2019 Standard Life was fined £30mn for mis-selling annuities to customers over the phone between 2008 and 2016....
...Private capital groups have swept into life insurance since the financial crisis, with firms as big as Apollo, Blackstone and KKR either acquiring life insurers — providers of annuities and other products...
...This means that offloading liabilities, and the assets backing them, to insurance companies is becoming a viable option for more businesses....
...And at retirement a single large pot will attract better annuity rates and access to a wider range of post-retirement options....
...Both are alumni of consultancy McKinsey and came to insurance as outsiders — Wilson’s first job in insurance was at L&G, joining from events company UBM....
...Annuity-holder runs against PE firms’ insurance subsidiaries could lead to sudden and heavy withdrawals from banks....
...Annuities work well where a reliable income is needed, and higher rates are available (as in late retirement). But their inflexibility and complex pension rules means they must be treated with care....
...Savers have also been drawn to the security of an annuity income at a time when investments in stocks and bonds, the mainstays of most retirement portfolios, have been battered by concerns about high inflation...
...As you say, though, the annuity market has improved recently and so it is sensible for anyone approaching retirement, or even those who have started to draw benefits, to give the purchase of an annuity full...
...Portfolios of private assets are being dumped by so-called defined benefit pension schemes — funds offering members a set amount in retirement — as they try to prepare themselves for a buyout by an insurance...
...AM Best, a rating agency that specialises in insurance, has raised concerns about the quality of assets held by 777 Re, which are invested to support annuity contracts sold by A-Cap and another insurer,...
...Experts predict hundreds of billions of pounds of liabilities will transfer from company balance sheets to insurance companies as part of a multiyear shift that will redraw the UK’s retirement landscape....
...Some bulk annuity providers such as Aviva and Legal & General are part of broader groups offering other types of insurance and investments but PIC, founded in 2006, is a privately owned specialist in the...
...on buyout groups’ attempts to trust-build with prudential regulators....
...High inflation has provided a boost to the UK’s retirement sector, as rising pay awards increase the amount that people are putting into their pension, according to FTSE 100 life insurance group Phoenix....
...So does that make annuities “sexy” enough for Barbie and others to consider, as they approach retirement age?...
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