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From start line to surplus: hedging for run on

As more defined benefit (DB) schemes choose to run on rather than move straight to buyout, attention is turning to how investment strategies can be refined to improve outcomes for members and sponsors. Our recent article, Making your assets work harder in run-on, explored how investment strategy can support this direction of travel. This article looks at the other key lever: liability hedging. By setting hedging in line with your run-on objective, time horizon and surplus policy, trustees and sponsors can reduce funding level volatility, preserve transaction affordability and create more scope for surplus, without taking unrewarded risk.
Posted on Friday Dec 19

The implications of Aberdeens landmark deal

Aberdeen's pioneering transaction to assume sponsorship of the £1.2bn Stagecoach Group Pension Scheme (SGPS) marks a significant milestone in the evolution of UK defined benefit (DB) pensions. The deal shows that there are alternatives for well-funded schemes to access surplus, beyond the well-trodden buyout path. Under the Stagecoach transaction, Aberdeen became the sponsoring employer of the SGPS, enabling the scheme to run-on and deploy surplus assets to enhance member benefits.
Posted on Thursday Dec 18

Pensions dashboards webinar are you ready to connect

This webinar is specifically designed to support medium and small schemes that are preparing to connect. With more limited resources and technical capabilities, the journey to connection can feel daunting and we understand the challenges you face. If you couldn’t join us live you can now catch-up on demand. TPR are joined by experts from the Pensions Dashboards Programme and the Pensions Administration Standards Association, as well as a professional trustee to discuss the current landscape and provide advice on what schemes need to do ahead of connection. The webinar concludes with a 36-minute Q&A which provided detailed answers to 21 questions put forward by the audience.
Posted on Wednesday Dec 17

Looking back on the LGPS and moving forward

2025 - what a year that was! It has been incredibly busy in the LGPS, particularly in England and Wales, with the triennial valuations; pooling and investment proposals, four consultations at the last count (Access and Fairness, Access and Protections, Fit for the Future proposals, and Fit for the Future draft Regulations); not to mention the Pension Schemes Bill, McCloud, connection to the Dashboard infrastructure - the list goes on! But is 2026 going to be any easier?
Posted on Wednesday Dec 17

Actuarial Post Magazine Awards Winners Edition December 2025

Welcome to the Actuarial Post Awards 2025 winner’s edition and we hope you enjoy reading about their responses on having won their award. The awards this year were, once again I am in danger of repeating myself every year, but they were our biggest to date in terms of engagement and votes cast across all of the categories. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), Bolton Associates and Star Actuarial Futures for supporting our awards this year.
Posted on Monday Dec 15

2026 M&A Outlook with 5 trends firms should track for 2026

Buyers have learned to normalise and move through uncertainty, supported by lower financing costs and increased confidence in future growth prospects. As we approach the close of 2025, the global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape is buzzing with renewed optimism. Our latest WTW research, conducted in partnership with the M&A Research Centre at Bayes Business School, reveals that dealmakers have significantly outclassed companies not involved in M&A during the first nine months of this year, based on share price performance.
Posted on Friday Dec 12

The Purple Book 2025 Webinar

In this exclusive webinar, Professional Pensions editor, Jonathan Stapleton, is joined by our Chief Actuary, Shalin Bhagwan, and our Actuary, James Emmott, to discuss the latest edition. Our annual Purple Book provides a comprehensive picture of the defined benefit (DB) pensions landscape in the UK. This webinar, accompanying the launch of this year's edition, will provide insights on key trends and emerging themes around scheme funding, demographics, and evolving asset allocations.
Posted on Thursday Dec 11

The regulatory future for sole trustees

Last month the Association of Professional Pension Trustees (APPT) published its revised sole trustee code of practice, effective from 1 January 2026. The new code has had input from the Pensions Regulator (TPR) and the APPT’s 450 members. The code has been revised to reflect the maturing sole trustee market. It no longer has wording about it being voluntary, and there is now a requirement to follow the code, except in exceptional circumstances where doing so would conflict with trustees’ overriding duties. The code still has no statutory force.
Posted on Thursday Dec 11

Insurance in an Era of Escalating Climate Risk

Climate change is happening, right here, right now. From record-breaking storms to heatwaves, the UK and Ireland are facing climate-driven risks that are both immediate and could rise in the long-term, depending on if and by how much carbon emissions are cut. Insurance providers must therefore equip themselves with data that tells them about today’s risks and how those risks could escalate in the decades ahead.

Posted on Tuesday Dec 9

Pensions 2025 - Discussing the industry issues that matter

The annual Pensions UK Conference is always a highlight in the pensions industry events calendar. It’s great not just to hear the talks from the movers and shakers of the industry, but to have a chance to hear from the trustees, sponsors and other industry professionals about their concerns and the issues that matter to them. At this year’s conference we once again recorded a special mini-series of Beyond Curious with LCP. We heard from leading voices in the industry on the big questions shaping pensions today and tomorrow.
Posted on Monday Dec 8

TPR reminder on setting mortality base tables for pensions

Stephen Caine considers the importance of mortality base tables in light of the new funding regime. As many schemes prepare for their first valuations under the Pensions Regulator's new funding code, much of the attention has understandably been on low dependency targets, significant maturity, and reliability periods. When it comes to mortality, increasingly complex future improvement models have taken all the attention (eg the latest "CMI 2024" model).
Posted on Friday Dec 5

PPF publishes 20th edition of The Purple Book

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has today published The Purple Book 2025, the 20th edition of its comprehensive analysis of the UK’s defined benefit (DB) pension landscape. This year’s publication shows aggregate DB funding levels remain strong. The aggregate funding position of DB schemes on a section 179 basis, as at 31 March 2025, shows a net surplus of £214bn, similar to last year’s £219bn. The funding ratio increased from 123 per cent to 125 per cent, driven primarily by higher gilt yields reducing liability values.
Posted on Thursday Dec 4

Superfund market opportunity for DB pension scheme sponsors

Almost a decade after it was first floated as an idea, the superfund market is finally gaining traction in the UK pensions market. With a clearer regulatory framework taking shape, Clara Pensions developing a credible transaction track record and the announcement of a new superfund entrant (with rumours of more to come), all signs are pointing towards the superfund market becoming an established risk transfer option for UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes.
Posted on Wednesday Dec 3

Getting ahead of cancer

In this latest episode of our Inside Health series, Dr Zoe Williams sits down with Dr Tim Woodman, Bupa’s Medical Director of Policy, and Dr Frankie Jackson-Spence, cancer expert, to explore how cancer screenings, tests, and prevention strategies can help you get ahead of cancer.
Posted on Tuesday Dec 2

Lift your strategic role in climate, sustainability and ESG

By collaborating more closely with sustainability teams and using data-driven insights, risk professionals can shape resilience and help protect long-term business value. We’re seeing more organizations expand sustainability teams’ remits to include areas traditionally overseen by risk professionals. This trend is driven by climate disclosure requirements and increasingly complex, volatile climate and natural catastrophe risks.
Posted on Tuesday Dec 2

Theory to practice the first year of funding code valuations

In 2025, many defined benefit (DB) pension schemes faced a landmark moment: their first actuarial valuations under The Pensions Regulator’s (TPR’s) new funding code. Now, a year on, we’re starting to see how schemes are responding to the biggest shake-up in funding rules for over 20 years. Each scheme faces its own challenges in first-time adoption, for many, strong funding positions have eased the transition, allowing them to retain existing strategies while ticking the compliance boxes.
Posted on Monday Dec 1

Autumn Budget employer implications beyond the headlines

Recorded on the morning after the Chancellor's announcement, Barnett Waddingham's expert-led panel have unpacked the key outcomes and implications of the government's 2025 Autumn Budget.
Posted on Friday Nov 28

Spotlight on fraud as trustees are urged to make the Pledge

This month marks the fifth anniversary of our Pledge to Combat Pension Scams campaign. The threat of scammers is ever-present, and trustees and administrators have a crucial role to play in protecting their members by making the Pledge. While national initiatives like the BBC’s Scam Safe week – which we are supporting this week – help raise awareness, it’s the pensions industry who are best positioned to warn and protect pension savers.
Posted on Friday Nov 28

Final Day for Voting in the 2025 Actuarial Post Awards

It's your last chance to vote in the 2025 Actuarial Post Awards as the voting window slams shut tonight. We have been celebrating and rewarding talent and achievements of individuals in the actuarial arena since 2012. We would like to thank our sponsors who support the awards, this year Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) sponsor Actuary of the Year and Bolton Associates sponsor GI Actuary of the Year. Sustainability Actuary of the Year is sponsored by Star Actuarial Futures. It's your final chance to cast your vote today.
Posted on Thursday Nov 27

The FCA on rebalancing risk

Rebalancing risk is one of the corner stones of the FCA Strategy 2025 to 2030. Risk is not solely something to be mitigated but a necessary condition for encouraging investment and innovation. Our initiatives centre on higher standards, enabling market access, support, and innovation.Increased participation in private markets offers new opportunities and new risks. Our supervisory work is focusing on valuation practices, conflicts of interest and risk management to support industry and investor confidence.
Posted on Wednesday Nov 26

AI is rewriting the rules for commercial lines

Discover how AI is transforming commercial insurance by improving efficiency, enhancing decision-making, and building resilience across underwriting, claims, pricing, and portfolio management. Commercial lines insurance is changing—not with loud announcements or flashy tech demos, but through quiet, meaningful shifts in how work gets done. Much of this progress is driven by teams applying AI tools to everyday tasks. Underwriters are spending less time wrangling documents and more time thinking critically about risk.
Posted on Tuesday Nov 25

The resilience of an aging world

With global populations over 65 expected to double by 2050, aging is often seen as a risk multiplier. Yet it can also be a source of resilience. During societal contingencies, most older people need more help than others, because physical frailty is a fact of life. But senior citizens also have crucial skills, not least because they have spent most of their lives in an era during which digital tools and solutions didn’t exist.
Posted on Monday Nov 24

How to unlock true value from workplace pensions

Workplace pensions are one of employers’ most powerful tools to support their people’s financial wellbeing, engagement and long-term retention. But despite often being the single largest employee benefit cost, many schemes run on autopilot - offering limited insight into the value they deliver for the business or its people. Employers stand to gain far more when they treat pensions as a strategic asset with significant value and not just another expense on the balance sheet.
Posted on Friday Nov 21

Engagement - the underused risk management tool

Defined contribution pension schemes are seen as low risk for employers, but if staff don’t understand and appreciate them, the risks can add up. With the rise of defined contribution (DC) pensions, many of the risks associated with building and managing adequate retirement savings have been transferred to individuals. However, this doesn’t make DC a no-risk option for employers. For instance, if a lack of savings means people can’t retire, this can introduce succession and workforce management challenges for their employers.
Posted on Thursday Nov 20

A 360 Degree Lens on Risk Data and AI

This session provides a clear overview of the fundamentals of Risk Engineering and the vital role of real-time, accurate insights to improve portfolio performance, enabling smarter decisions to mitigate claims. The session also addresses how these capabilities & the use of AI to analyse data can support growth in a resource-constrained environment – where market expansion and client expectations for digital are driving evolutionary change.
Posted on Wednesday Nov 19