I came across an interesting panel discussion in the current issue of Engaged Investor Magazine, where a number of industry experts were asked for their views on developments in pension scheme de-risking. My views on the questions addressed are as follows:

Q1 – Many companies are not able to carry out full buyout in one go. What multi-layered approaches can they take to de-risk their schemes?

The most important first step is for the employer and trustees to agree a common goal for the scheme. In almost all cases (especially closed schemes), the ultimate goal should be to secure all benefits with an insurance company and wind-up the scheme.

An agreed, transparent objective will then set the path towards the ultimate goal. There are many alternative partial de-risking measures that can be taken, most of which can work in parallel. These include employer led exercises such as:

• a transfer exercise, offering members the opportunity to transfer their scheme benefits to an alternative arrangement via an incentive in the form of an increased transfer value, or sometimes a cash payment; or
• a pension increase swap exercise, where members give up future pension increases in return for a higher initial pension.

These exercises can generate significant savings to the employer relative to the ultimate cost of buyout. They are unlikely to generate significant immediate savings on ongoing funding costs or FRS 17, though they do contribute to reducing the risk profile of the scheme.

These exercises can be run in tandem with providing opportunities to members to retire early from the scheme, which can generate savings on cash commutation and also insurers prefer the “certainty” of pensioners rather than deferred members. In conjunction with the company, the trustees can also move towards a lower risk investment strategy, using bonds or LDI type investments, and also consider partial insurance such as pensioner buy-ins. I would caution that for schemes with young pensioners or where the pensioner group makes up a small proportion of the liabilities, it may not be efficient to use significant resources of the scheme to obtain insurance covering only a small portion of the liabilities. There are also opportunities developing in the market to enter into a staged buyout process with insurers, where the terms are agreed up front but the whole premium is not required at the outset.

Nor should the trustees overlook the potential for non-cash funding, such as parental guarantees, contingent assets or “asset-sharing” with the company, such as the whisky-bond deal completed by Diageo .

Q2 – In what ways did trustees’ de-risking choices change during 2010?

The choices remained broadly unchanged, though it was a year of massive change in defined benefit pensions, particularly on the legislative front. The single largest issue was Steve Webb’s RPI/CPI summer bombshell, which is expected to have a significant effect on pension scheme funding. Most schemes are expected to see a reduction in liabilities of between 5-15% depending on the nature of the scheme rules.

This meant that larger exercises tended to be shelved as trustees waited for the full impact of the change in inflation measure to come through. I would say the introduction of innovative non-cash funding solutions and the focus by trustees on obtaining enforceable security was the other main development in de-risking.

The emergence of longevity swaps was supposed to be the big-ticket item for 2010, but this remains the preserve on the very largest of schemes and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Q3 – What early steps, such as data cleansing, communications and legal considerations, should be undertaken before entering into a de-risking activity?

The quality of pension scheme data can be highly variable. It can be held in multiple formats, for very long periods of time and is often subject to major change (e.g. after mergers, systems migrations, legislative changes). When entering a liability management exercise and moving ultimately towards winding-up a scheme, every effort must be made to ensure that members have the correct pension entitlement. The key message on data is that full and accurate data will reduce the cost of staff communication and liability management exercises as well as ultimately buying annuities as it helps to reduce underwriters’ pricing for uncertainty.

The communication process is also vital, both between the employer/trustees and the member. Possibly even more important is the communication between a financial advisor and the member during an employer’s de-risking exercise.

The need for proper legal input almost goes without saying, but the emergence of the RPI/CPI issue and continued problems with sex equalisation and other scheme amendments, mean that assistance from your friendly pensions lawyer is a necessity, not a luxury.

I remember with some fondness Denis Norden and his clipboard each Christmas taking us through another collection of bloopers and mishaps. The strange thing was that the title was a bit misleading as it quite clearly never was alright on the night.

Early in 2010 I made some predictions about the likely outcome of the SFHA pension schemes actuarial valuation and unfortunately when the results were made public these proved to be all too accurate . As I mentioned in the later blog you really didn’t have to be Derren Brown or own a fully functioning crystal ball to arrive at the results. Read more »

How many times have I dug out my drive-way this week? Each time I broke my back to dig down to the paving more snow appeared and the colourful language commenced.

Feel free to draw any analogies with funding a DB pension schemes still open to future accrual.

It couldn’t be worse, or could it? Well only if you’d:

• no option on shovel size
• no option to use grit or salt
• your neighbour kept pilling all his snow on your drive

Ah, that will be a multi-employer scheme.

‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.  Much like Monty Python’s famous Norwegian Blue parrot, private sector defined benefit pension schemes are dead.  They are not resting, stunned or even pining for the fjords – they’re stone dead.

I therefore believe the calls by the UK pensions industry to shield defined benefit pension schemes from the effects of Solvency II are somewhat misplaced.  If the only reason for not adopting Solvency II is to prevent the further closures of such schemes, then these calls do not stand up to scrutiny.  Schemes have been closing rapidly under the existing regime and will continue to do so irrespective of European legislation.

Many employers overburdened by regulation and the dawning realisation of the real cost of pension guarantees have called time on defined benefit provision. The adoption of Solvency II may well further hasten this inevitable demise. For a large number of schemes, accepting this now will be a good thing in the long run.

The closure of schemes leaves two main issues: (1) should defined benefits constitute a cast-iron promise to beneficiaries and (2) how do we best close the funding gaps to ensure all liabilities are met?

The magnitude of UK defined benefit obligations have grown over time, often beyond the sponsors’ control. Layer upon layer of legislation, primarily relating to guaranteed indexation, has left employers to fund obligations which were not present or intended when schemes were first set up.  In effect, this has hindered the private sector from delivering pensions which can be guaranteed.

Beneficiaries certainly believe a promise is a promise and fully expect employers to stand behind their obligations irrespective of the above problems.  This feeling is heightened by the fact that fewer and fewer beneficiaries have an ongoing mutual interest in the prospects of the sponsor. However, by allowing measures which rely so heavily on employers, it is also clear that the UK funding regime has never been set up in a way to match the understanding of the beneficiaries.  It is a structure based on hope rather than expectation.

As integration across member states continues and the workforce in the EU becomes increasingly mobile, I would expect that benefit promises made by companies in all EU states will face harmonised regulation and enforcement. UK residents who end up working in other EU states would fully expect benefit promises to be honoured just as our European counterparts would surely expect the same protection working in the UK.

The expectation of benefit promises being honoured seems to make it inevitable that there will be levelling up of pension legislation across the EU, whether by Solvency II or other means.

The National Association of Pension Funds claims that the UK system already provides a strong level of protection for its members through the employer covenant, The Pensions Regulator (tPR) and the Pension Protection Fund. While the current regime is undoubtedly more robust, any inference that the existence of the PPF is a justification for a lower funding target should be discounted.

In support of this view, the Association of Consulting Actuaries believes that the current directive with its requirement for the prudent funding of technical provisions is providing ‘an appropriate balance between protecting members’ benefits and keeping the cost to employers at an affordable level’.  While balance is appropriate, I believe it would be a mistake to retain a lower funding target because it is all that can be afforded in the short-medium term.  It is much better to aim for the right target, even if it is going to take longer to get there.

As well as possible directives on Solvency II, there are a number of additional factors which support stronger funding targets such as the views of the Accounting Standards Board; the ultimate legal obligation on employers is already set at buyout; and the dominance of solvency levels in pension related discussions during mergers & acquisitions, where FRS and technical provisions are cast aside.

For all but the very largest of schemes, the only realistic end game is to buy out all of the remaining benefits with an insurance company as soon as it is affordable and efficient to do so.  In the meantime, the need for employer flexibility and the reluctance of tPR to accept very long-term recovery plans have lead to the adoption of weaker funding targets which rely on the ethereal employer covenant.  However this is the system we must work within at the moment.

Whichever way we end up reserving for and funding schemes, the UK pensions industry needs to face up to the fact that its biggest task is dealing with legacy deficits and not propagating the virtues of future benefit accrual.  The private sector defined benefit experiment has failed and the best that can be done is to ensure that current obligations to members are met. It is time to admit that the parrot is truly dead.

Estimating life expectancy is an important part of an actuary’s job. Last month’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) report on the issue of life expectancy certainly brought a real focus to this important aspect of our role and, as a man who lives in one of the lowest ranked areas for longevity in the UK, it also cast a bit of an unwelcome shadow over my day.

Confronted by headlines such as ‘Scotland the Grave’ and ‘Increase in North-South Life Expectancy Divide’, the Scottish media highlighted how the recently published ONS survey showed how the average UK man will live until he is 77.9, compared with only 75.4 years in Scotland. The comparable figures for women are 82.0 and 80.1 respectively.

Somewhat worryingly for me, the average male in Glasgow will die aged 71.1 years. Unsurprisingly, given the health issues that continue to plague many parts of this city, this is the lowest for any area in UK. This is in sharp contrast to Kensington and Chelsea where the average man can expect to live for 84.4 years, exposing a staggering gap of over 13 years in life expectancy between two regions of the same country.

There are important lessons in the ONS study for actuaries, as well as for sponsoring employers and trustees of defined benefit schemes. For defined benefit arrangements, it is the scheme (and ultimately the sponsoring employer) who is exposed to the risk of how long each member lives. The longer each member lives, the longer a pension will need to be provided for and hence the cost of providing the pension increases.

The study reinforces the need to consider and manage the risks associated with life expectancy on a scheme-by-scheme basis. For each additional year of life expectancy, the reserves required – and the ultimate cost of the scheme – increase by around three per cent. So taking the extremes above, the reserving requirements could vary by up to 40 per cent!

However, we need to be careful on drawing conclusions from this study on two fronts. Firstly, members of pension schemes tend to live a lot longer than those with no pension provision – which gives me some personal comfort in relation to the above statistics. This is borne out of many studies on life expectancy by insurance companies and by analysing data from self-administered pension schemes. Currently, most pension schemes assume that current pensioners will live into their mid-late eighties and that future pensioners will live into their nineties.

Secondly, in my view – and this is where views in the actuarial profession differ – it is not geography but socio-demographic factors that matter where life expectancy is concerned. If geography alone was a significant factor, why would the gap in life expectancy between neighbouring areas such as Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire be over seven years, whereas the gap between Glasgow and Manchester is less than three years and only around four years between Glasgow and areas in London? This point was summed up by Duncan McNeil, Labour MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, who said: “someone in my community can expect to live around 10 years less than someone else who lives just minutes along the road in a better-off area.”

This is why analysis at a postcode level is so important, where life expectancy is considered on a street by street basis. This is the most effective and accurate current method for assessing life expectancy for most pension schemes. I would urge trustees of schemes and sponsoring employers to ensure this area is given appropriate attention and that a postcode analysis is carried out at least every three years to coincide with the formal valuation of a scheme’s funding level. The only reason for departing from this is if your scheme is large enough to conduct its own mortality study. However, this would only apply to schemes with thousands or even tens of thousands of pensioner members.

Before I get completely morose about the ONS report and the implied implications on a Glaswegian male like myself, I can take some comfort that there are other factors at play in determining what ultimately accounts for the number of innings we are likely to be on this earth. It is important that these are also accounted for on a wider scale for those of us who manage pension schemes to ensure we have the appropriate funding levels in place.

In Hanoi, under French colonial rule, a program paying people a bounty for each rat pelt handed in was intended to exterminate rats. Instead, it led to the farming of rats!!

The Government has announced a huge cull of quangos in a move it says is aimed at improving accountability as well as meeting deficit reduction objectives. Whilst I don’t expect this particular cull to result in the establishment of quango farms in the home counties, it may well have equally unintended consequences as I doubt what could be very significant pensions implications have been properly considered. These implications may well threaten the future solvency of some organisations not directly mentioned, and only loosely connected, and dwarf any potential financial savings expected. Read more »

Recent experience has suggested to me that many third sector bodies are missing out on perfectly viable out-sourced engagements because they are not adopting an effective approach to dealing with the associated pension risks.

With considerable pressure on public finances it seems inevitable that there will be a move to out-source increasing amounts of public services to the private sector. This undoubtedly represents a very significant opportunity for the third sector as their skills and specialisms would make them a very attractive home for many of these services.  However, organisations should not be attracted to the bright lights without having a full understanding of the risks and pitfalls which might await them.

Read more »

I read a recent article on the investment returns achieved by the ICI pension fund . The ICI fund was one of the first funds to implement a Liability Driven Investment (LDI) strategy back in the year 2000.

The article was lauding the fact that the fund had returned an average of 5.5% per annum over the last 10 years compared to 3.7% per annum for the average UK defined benefit pension scheme, according to the WM All Funds universe. All good news you might say, but on closer inspection what is it actually telling us, other than that the 3.7% per annum achieved by the average pension scheme is lamentable?

As most readers of this article will recognise, the purpose of an LDI fund is to provide returns which match the timing and nature of the cashflows required by the scheme. In broad terms, the LDI fund should rise in value if interest rates fall, or inflation rises. This will “match” the rise in liabilities (if a number of other assumptions hold). The converse is expected if interest rates rise, or inflation reduces.

In my view the article is really telling us that the fund returns were positive because interest rates fell, (which is good, because that’s what it is supposed to do). It tells us nothing about the real success of the strategy, i.e. how did the fund return relative to the changes in liabilities which it was trying to match, or indeed would a simpler, less costly holding in long terms gilts be just as successful when set against the undoubted cost of this strategy?

Depending on the movements in interest rates and inflation, a very successful LDI strategy could be one which gives rise to negative returns, as long as it matches what it is supposed to match.

So while the article on ICI makes for interesting reading, would it have been more valuable if the apples it described had been compared to other apples rather than a wider selection of fruit?

In February this year my blog asked the question “Will the SFHA Pension Scheme be the next to fall in the Pension Trust house of cards?  Well the house may not have collapsed but it’s certainly in serious need of repair!!

The Pensions Trust has been communicating the results of the SFHA actuarial valuation with participants over the last couple of months and as I’d suspected the news is not good. The valuation was calculated at 30 September 2009 and the key results were:-

• The funding position has deteriorated to 64.8% from 83.4% in 2006
• The deficit has increased to £160.1m from £53.6m
• The contribution to fund the past service deficit Read more »