To great acclaim ( suspect from home support), Standard Life launched last week its funding for future buy-out business.

It is hard though not to agree with estimates of their capacity to compete over the past 18 month, Standard Life have been skint and now they have money again, the question is “have they got somewhere to spend it. There has been much talking up of the UK buy-out market since the marvellous year (as it now seems) of 2024 and each half that has followed, while remarking of a weakening of sales , has finished saying the next half will see the upwards trajectory return. The trajectory is more likely to be upwards in terms of schemes in transfer but not in total pensions which are governed by scheme numbers and scheme size. Over to Andy Smith at the beginning of the year.

Andy was able to further break down 2025 in terms of size and number

By last month, Andy was able to report on what had happened so far in 2026 in terms of Pension Risk Transfer (aka buy-in and out)

Here are comments on L&G

But it’s the same story of small schemes moving to buy in and eventually buy-out while the larger schemes are moving away from large deals fast.

Standard Life had the highest average Pension Risk Transfer last year at £550m but they were fifth in Andy Smith’s league table.

This year has not been a good year for Aviva , alongside L&G the “big three” of the traditional insurers.

Andy reports that at an 18% IRR , Aviva’s margins have been holding up but this tells me that they were writing business that could have been priced much keener and left better value for the money of the pension schemes. Somewhere in all this is the member. Derek Scott , commenting on Andy Smith’s analysis , pointed out that though there is competition , it’s pretty weak.

Let’s hope that the influx of funds to back the Standard Life PRT deals will mean something to members and not just a good IRR for Standard Life.

I read a lot about how insurers fare and how employers have had a risk taken from them, but how does this translate to benefits to those for whom the pension schemes were created?

Back in 2023-4 when the PRT market was at its peak, it was argued that pensioners shared in the risk as schemes were still recovering from 12 years of austerity and one year (2022) which ended in catastrophy.

Today that argument cannot be made. Most DB pension schemes are in surplus and the threat to members is minimal. Small schemes may be an inefficient way of paying retirement wages but there are other consolidators in waiting called superfunds. My prediction is that trustees will see superfunds as much better for members , for trustees and employers. I suspect that small schemes will look to superfunds , just as large schemes look to running on , either with their sponsor or a strengthened alternative.

Will the money have arrived for Standard Life just as the market moves across the size spectrum from end game to run on?