Just Retirement has launched a new defined benefits proposition offering de-risking solutions to employers and trustees, which will target small and medium-sized schemes with up to 300 members.

The UK life assurance group will use medical underwriting to focus on members who represent a large proportion of the scheme’s liabilities.

Just Retirement’s defined benefit director Tim Coulson said that the company has accumulated detailed knowledge of how health and lifestyle issues impact on life expectancy.

“This extra information allows us to understand and price the risk more accurately and, in many cases, to offer more cost-effective solutions. We have developed an approach to undertake a detailed underwriting assessment of the member. Typically we wouldn’t underwrite all or even most of the members, but instead focus on the health status of a small number who may account for a relatively large chunk of the overall liabilities.”

Coulson added that modest-sized schemes make up the majority of the 6,400 schemes tracked by the Pension Protection Fund and commented that “this part of the market has multi-billion growth potential if compelling solutions can be offered”.

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