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The catastrophe-bond market is becoming more closely aligned with conventional primary-insurer reinsurance: indemnity triggers accounted for nearly 78% of 2026 issuance, continuing a rise from 67.5% in 2022. The outstanding market has also shifted decisively toward per-occurrence cover, with aggregate structures falling from 58% of risk capital in 2019 to 36.1% currently. The change reflects both expanding use by primary insurers—whose loss portfolios favour indemnity protection—and investor caution toward aggregate covers, which have proved more vulnerable to frequent loss accumulation under lower retentions and broader peril definitions. Recent aggregate issuance has not offset large indemnity, occurrence-based deals. [Artemis.bm]

Memory Lane Cakes Pension Scheme has completed a bulk purchase annuity buy-out with Utmost Life and Pensions for an undisclosed amount covering 362 scheme members and dependents in the United Kingdom. The transaction finalizes a de-risking process that commenced with a full scheme buy-in in June 2025 and included the completion of guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) equalization over a 13-month transition period. [Longevity & Mortality Investor]

An unnamed manufacturing firm's defined benefit pension scheme has completed a buy-in with Just Group for £11 million covering 87 members (62 pensioners and 25 deferred members) in the United Kingdom. [PensionsAge]

Harneys, a global offshore law firm originally established in the British Virgin Islands, and droppRWA, a Bermuda-based tokenization platform, reportedly plan to issue tokenized catastrophe (CAT) bonds by 2027, transitioning legal ownership directly onto a blockchain. This could compress reconciliation from days to seconds and reduce minimum investments from $250,000 to $5,000 via beneficial interest vehicles. The project is still pending applicable regulatory requirements and approvals. Any platform administrator role would be subject to licensing under Bermuda’s Digital Asset Business Act 2018. [Coindesk]

The Samworth Brothers Limited Superannuation Scheme has completed a buy-in with Canada Life for £400 million covering more than 7,000 members, comprising 3,000 pensioners and 4,000 deferred members, in the United Kingdom. [Pensions Expert]

An unnamed pension scheme has completed a superfund transfer with Clara-Pensions for £40 million covering more than 400 members in the UK. The scheme will join a pooled section of the Clara Pension Trust, representing the second transaction under the provider's dedicated consolidation service for smaller schemes. [Pensions expert]

The Wood Group defined benefit pension scheme has completed a buy-in with Legal & General for £1.65 billion covering 16,400 members in the United Kingdom. The transaction is the largest bulk annuity deal announced in 2026 to date and the first of the year valued above £1 billion. [Pensions Expert]

American Coastal Insurance Company issued $25.5 million Armor Re II Ltd. (Series 2026-2) single-tranche one-year catastrophe (CAT) bonds. They will cover losses from named storms in Florida on an indemnity and per-occurrence basis. [Source: Artemis.bm]

Artex Axcell Re (Bermuda) Limited has issued at least $20 million PI0055 Grantham single-tranche catastrophe (CAT) bonds. The term to maturity, losses covered and the basis on which they are covered were not specified. [Source: Artemis.bm]

S&P published a report that suggests that British life insurance company balance sheets “demonstrate significant resilience” when stress-tested against historical market shocks. The stress test indicated that a representative UK bulk purchase annuity insurer with a 200% coverage ratio could retain coverage above 150% under an extreme composite scenario, including an 11% default rate across illiquid private-credit assets. The exercise applied historical credit shocks, a 20% fall in equity-release-mortgage valuations, and Global Financial Crisis defaults, supporting the view that matching-adjustment portfolios have meaningful loss-absorption capacity. [Longevity & Mortality Investor]

Canadian defined benefit plan sponsors completed $1.5 billion in annuity purchases in Q2 2026, bringing year-to-date pension risk transfer volume to $1.9 billion, per Telus Health. This exceeds first-half 2025 ($0.8 billion) but trails 2024's record pace ($2.6 billion by mid-year, $11 billion full-year). Telus Health attributes activity to strong funded positions and competitive annuity pricing, letting sponsors lock in gains and offload market, interest-rate and longevity risk without cash injections, now framed within broader governance and risk-management strategy rather than as standalone transactions. The firm projects roughly $6 billion for full-year 2026. [Benefits Canada]

Altro Pension Scheme has completed a £85 million buy-in with M&G’s Prudential Assurance Company, covering 740 members and dependants, in the United Kingdom. The transaction was finalised in April 2026 using M&G’s BPA Plus structure. [PensionsAge]

The UK bulk-annuity market appears capital-capable of sustaining projected annual volumes of about £50 billion, but according to PensionsExpert the operational bottleneck is converting pension-scheme buy-ins into full buyouts, which transfers members and liabilities to the insurer. This matters because transaction counts, particularly smaller deals, are rising faster than premium volume and require intensive data cleansing, benefit equalization, administration, and member-transition work. Estimated annual insurer capacity of £65–70 billion may therefore overstate executable capacity where deal fragmentation and post-transaction workloads are high. Insurers are expanding specialist teams and automating processes, but the unresolved issue is whether administration capacity can scale without extending transition periods or compromising service quality. [Pensions Expert]

This paper develops Longevity-at-Risk (LaR) as a backtestable, liability-linked measure of adverse mortality improvement. LaR is defined as the upper-tail quantile of mortality improvement for a given age, country, and forecast horizon. We extend the framework by introducing liability-based LaR, which translates adverse mortality-improvement scenarios into survival probabilities and annuity present-value stress, and Conditional Longevity-at-Risk, which measures tail risk conditional on cross-population longevity stress. Using data from the Human Mortality Database for eight developed economies, we estimate mortality-improvement distributions for ages 50–100 and horizons of 1, 5, 10, and 20 years. Composite Quantile LaR delivers lower coverage error and lower pinball loss than formal Lee–Carter and Cairns–Blake–Dowd benchmarks on the common seven-country sample. The framework provides a transparent tail-risk metric for annuity pricing, pension risk transfer, longevity reinsurance, solvency stress testing, and risk appetite governance. [Research Square]

The Royal Horticultural Society 1974 Pension Scheme has completed a £22 million buy-in with Royal London covering 230 members in the United Kingdom. [PensionsAge]

Royal Society of Chemistry Pension Scheme has completed a £83 million full-scheme buy-in with Pension Insurance Corporation covering all 468 members in the United Kingdom. [PensionsAge]

Mothercare has completed a full buy-out of its Executive defined benefit pension scheme with an undisclosed insurer for an undisclosed premium, transferring all scheme assets and liabilities in the United Kingdom. The transaction completed on 31 March 2026; the scheme had £81.2 million of assets and £80.5 million of liabilities at its 31 March 2023 valuation. (PensionsAge]

Longevity & Mortality Investor (LMI) published an article that argues UK defined benefit (DB) pension risk transfer (PRT) activity has bifurcated: smaller schemes are executing bulk purchase annuity deals while larger schemes remain paused pending regulatory clarity. Context is the Pension Schemes Act's Royal Assent, which loosened surplus-extraction rules and superfund eligibility, alongside a Bank of England Prudential Regulation Authority consultation (CP8/26) proposing higher capital buffers for funded reinsurance. This matters because rising funding levels (roughly 55 percent of schemes now above buy-out thresholds) have expanded run-on and surplus-sharing as credible alternatives to insurance buy-out, potentially reshaping insurer demand against an estimated 60 billion pounds of capacity versus 35 billion pounds of demand. Unresolved issues include final surplus-extraction rules (due 2027), superfund licensing details (due 2028), and how PRA capital treatment will affect funded-reinsurance-supported pricing. [LMI]

Longevity & Mortality Investor (LMI) published an article that argues VM-22, the principles-based reserving framework introduced January 2026 with a three-year optional transition, will let U.S. life carriers price pension risk transfer (PRT) deals more competitively. Unlike static, formula-based reserving, VM-22 permits company- and deal-specific mortality assumptions and reserves calculated against actual backing assets, rewarding disciplined asset-liability management and potentially lowering required capital for predictable PRT cash flows. This follows a 47% year-on-year drop in Q1 2026 PRT sales, linked partly to ERISA fiduciary-duty litigation that slowed jumbo deal approvals. The unresolved issue: heavy computational infrastructure requirements mean early adoption is limited—only about 10% of surveyed firms expect PRT-reserving readiness by year-end 2026—so pricing benefits likely won't materialize until 2027. [LMI]

An unnamed pension scheme sponsored by a UK insurance company has completed a £150 million bulk purchase annuity buy-in with M&G, covering approximately 1,200 members. The transaction was executed in June 2026, using M&G's BPA Plus solution, and the trustee is expected to continue progressing toward a full buy-out. [Longevity & Mortality Investor]

Mercer and legal adviser Stephenson Harwood share insights on how pooled arrangements have been able to secure insurance deals for some of the smallest clients. The article examines Mercer’s master trust completing a triple buy-in transaction, illustrating how pooled defined-benefit arrangements can give very small schemes access to bulk-annuity derisking that might otherwise be uneconomic or operationally difficult. It emphasizes coordination among the trustee, Mercer, Stephenson Harwood, insurers and scheme participants: standardised governance, consolidated data, aligned decision-making and transaction documentation reduced execution friction. [Pensions Expert]

Elementis Group Pension Scheme has completed a £300 million buy-in with Aviva covering 4,500 members in the United Kingdom. The transaction was finalised in May 2026 and includes an arrangement enabling a subset of members to access additional voluntary contributions for tax-free cash through Aviva’s integrated defined benefit and defined contribution master trust. [PensionsAge]

Pensions Expert published an article that argues that the U.K. bulk annuity market remains structurally open to sub‑£100 million defined benefit schemes even as larger buy‑ins re‑emerge, with advisers emphasizing preparation and “endgame” planning for trustees. Recent transactions include a £9.7 million small‑scheme buy‑in with Aviva alongside larger deals of £300 million (Elementis, Aviva) and £208 million (Hickson, Royal London), with features such as price locks, data‑cleansing services, and integration with defined contribution master trusts. This matters because competitive insurer demand and new advisory offerings like Aon’s “Future DB” consolidate administration, investment and covenant advice to channel schemes toward buyout or run‑on strategies, reinforcing the shift of United Kingdom defined benefit liabilities into insurance balance sheets. A key unresolved issue is how smaller schemes will navigate insurer capacity and governance demands as volumes continue to scale. [Pensions Expert]

The Hickson UK Group Pension Scheme has completed a buy-in with Royal London for £208 million, securing the benefits of 1,250 U.K. members. The transaction, which finalised in June 2026, is Royal London’s third-largest external bulk purchase annuity to date and its sixth-largest overall when including internal bulk purchase annuity transactions. [Source: PensionsAge]

The Aston Martin Lagonda Pension Scheme has completed a buy-in with Aviva for £180 million covering around 540 pensioners and 1,050 deferred members in the UK. Separately, an unnamed UK insurance company’s pension scheme has completed a £150 million ‘BPA Plus’ buy-in with M&G involving a risk-sharing element linked to M&G’s £132 billion With-Profits Fund. [Source: Pensions Expert]

The Miller Retirement Benefits Scheme has completed a buy-in with M&G (executed via Prudential Assurance Company) for £100 million in the United Kingdom. [Source: PensionsAge]

The ReAssure Staff Pension Scheme has completed a buy-in with Standard Life for £260 million covering approximately 2,750 members, including around 1,500 deferred members and approximately 1,250 pensioners and dependents, in the UK. The transaction was completed in June 2026. [Source: PensionsAge]

Swiss Re’s Capital Markets division reports that catastrophe (cat) bonds and related insurance-linked securities (ILSs) have grown at roughly a 15.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2021, with 2026 issuance and outstanding notional again reaching record levels. The first half of 2026 saw $17.6 billion of new cat bond issuance and outstanding limit rising to $64.8 billion, despite $10.2 billion in maturities and early redemptions. This reflects strong investor demand for uncorrelated catastrophe risk, sponsors using cat bonds more systematically around mid‑year renewals, and gradual broadening from peak U.S. wind and earthquake into selected secondary perils. [Source: Artemis.bm]

The trustees of the Crédit Commercial de France – London Branch Pension and Life Assurance Scheme have completed a buy‑in with Royal London for £10 million, securing members’ benefits in the United Kingdom. [Source: PensionsAge]

An unnamed UK pension scheme has completed a buy‑in with Aviva for £24 million, securing the benefits of 240 members in the United Kingdom. The trustees agreed in July 2025 to approach the market in February 2026 and aimed to execute the buy‑in before the second half of 2026. [PensionsAge]