Charlie Finch

Insurance companies are now providing benefits for more than 500,000 UK defined benefit members after a record year for buyout and buy-ins, research shows.

Industry figures are expecting a host of de-risking insurance deals to be undertaken by "quasi-public sector" schemes in the coming months.

Buyout deals totalled £8.1bn last year, with £1.6bn of this business written in Q4 alone, research by JLT Pension Capital Strategies shows.

Insurers will be forced to increase buyout prices in the medium term unless CPI-linked instruments are issued in the coming months, Punter Southall says.