Bulk annuity transaction sizes have changed dramatically in recent years, with the real growth story at the smaller end of the market.

A few key trends stand out:

🔹 >£100m – transaction numbers have remained broadly flat.

🔹 £50m–£100m – growth has been limited.

🔹 <£10m – growth in transaction numbers appears to have stalled.

🔹 £10m-£50m is where the action is with a record 71 of these in H1 2025 🔥. I suspect much of that growth has come from schemes in the £10m–£30m range.

The attached anonymised charts show insurer market shares over the last 4.5 years in the <£10m and £10m–£50m spaces.

📈 The £10m–£50m space has become more competitive, with several insurers growing their market share in 2025.

📉 The sub-£10m space remains dominated by a single insurer, responsible for over 70% of transactions in the last 2 years.

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The charts

Andy Smith is my touchstone on bulk annuities, he seems to hold the subject at a distance while being a consultant who does it! I think I am coming to the conclusion that superfunds are not going to take over small schemes as they were intending  and that large schemes are looking ways to be useful not just to members but sponsors

This is a really interesting graph which shows how things have happened over the past four years (the post covid era).

The next graph that Andy provides us is anonymised (not quite sure why!) . The one that dominates the smaller schemes is Just (my guess, fine me if I’m wrong!). The question I have for all involved is how many of the transactions have been “buy ins”, how many “buy outs ” and when schemes have bought insurance, how long they wait to wind up their scheme and allow the insurers to buy them out.

Andy Smith tells me this is very complicated, which is the kind of things consultants say quite a lot.

I had not expected to see many £1bn + schemes selling off the juicy bits (to insurers) but L&G bought into BP this week to the tune of £1.6bn (7% of BP’s liabilities – or is that assets?).

The members of BP, who are a very wary lot will not want to see BP buying out  and will be watchful of further encroachment. There is a long list of participants in this great affair that has been shared with Jonathan Stapleton of Professional Pensions

Members may not get over-excited by the prospect of getting greater security for their pension and could consider the opportunity to pay the discretionary increases they thought they’d been promised, reducing further.

BP Pension Fund trustee chair Brendan Nelson added: “This buy-in follows a detailed review of the options available to support the fund’s de-risking journey and hence the security of members’ accrued benefits.

This looks a different agenda being met, one that helps the shareholder and BP executive execute advantage in the shorter term than the pensioners.

Mind you, I don’t get the impression that the BP covenant is that weak!

I met a covenant assessor from Cardano (Mercer) last night and she didn’t seem too worried about BP’s capacity to meet its obligations either!