Pensions - Articles - Pension deficit estimate reduced by £60bn

 Charles Cowling, Director, JLT Employee Benefits, comments: “The latest mortality tables published by the independent experts at the CMI last week showed that we are not living quite as long as had been predicted a few years ago. Indeed, what had been put down to a blip in mortality data caused by a hard winter and some bad flu experience now may be part of a longer-term trend. For the last two or three decades pension schemes have had to face escalating pension liabilities and deficits caused by ever increasing life expectancy. However, the peak in longevity improvements was more than 10 years ago and the last five or six years have seen very little improvement in longevity.

 “This potentially could have a huge impact on pension schemes and we have responded by reducing our estimate of the total deficit in UK private sector pension schemes by more than £60 billion at the end of March. In a period when Article 50 was triggered and many voices of doom had predicted chaos in markets and more trouble for pension schemes, we have in fact seen fairly calm markets and a boost to pension schemes in the form of these latest mortality tables.