The Institution of Engineering and Technology has completed a £50 million pensioner buy-in transaction for the defined benefit (DB) IET Superannuation and Assurance Scheme.
The transaction, completed with the Pension Insurance Corporation, covers the scheme’s 300 uninsured pensioner members.
The buy-in has successfully reduced the pension scheme’s risks and has improved security for its members, leading to a material improvement in The IET Superannuation and Assurance Scheme’s funding position. This is in part due to being able to take advantage of favourable pricing in the second quarter of 2018.
This is the scheme’s second buy-in transaction, after a £30 million medically underwritten transaction occurred in 2015, to cover the scheme’s pensioners with the largest pension pots. The pension scheme trustees have used market opportunities around these two buy-in transactions to accelerate plans for fully securing members’ pension benefits.
Independent actuarial organisation Hymans Robertson was the lead adviser for the most recent buy-in transaction, and law firm Mayer Brown International provided legal advice.
Philip Whittome, chair of the trustees of the IET Superannuation and Assurance Scheme, said: “The trustees are pleased to have now secured buy-ins covering all of our current pensioners with a regulated insurance [organisation].
“The trustees were guided through an efficient and well-run process by Hymans Robertson, enabling the scheme to secure a buy-in for less than our technical provisions funding reserve and thus raising scheme funding levels to improve the security of all members’ benefits.”
