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Barnett Waddingham's Rosie Fantom joined experts on the panel of a new podcast from law firm Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), focused on pensions and bulk annuities.
The series explores the many issues schemes must consider, including why some may wish to undertake a series of bulk annuity transactions, rather than a single transaction covering all of the scheme’s liabilities.
In the first episode – available to listen to below – Rosie discussed these subjects with HSF host and Partner Rachel Pinto, and Matt Richards, Senior Business Development Manager at Standard Life. The conversation covered:
- Affordability and pricing
- Risk profile of scheme’s investments
- How to get insurers’ attention
- Data and benefit preparation
- How to tranche your scheme’s liabilities
- Challenges when residual risk cover is requested alongside a tranched approach
"It's largely a question of affordability. Most trustees and sponsors would typically insure all of their liabilities in one go if they could afford to do so – but that isn't where many DB schemes are... A partial transaction might help them take some of the risk off the table earlier in the journey."
The second episode (also below) sees Rosie and Rachel join Uzma Nazir, Head of Origination Structuring at Pension Insurance Corporation to explore the issues for small- to medium-sized schemes, including:
- What size of scheme is considered as small or medium from an insurer’s point of view
- Why the size of a scheme is important to an insurer
- What schemes can do in order to appear attractive to insurers
- The main points to focus on when preparing for a transaction
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