Scottish Life expects to see "good volumes of new business" this year as auto-enrolment (AE) rolls out, the pensions provider said on announcing its record new business results for 2012.

Its total new life and pensions business for 2012 stood at £2.44bn, a rise of 8 per cent on 2011’s figures. In the final quarter of 2012 new business increased by 48 per cent, higher than the equivalent three months of 2011.

The company estimates another positive year for new pensions business in 2013, two months ahead of its AE staging dates. Looking ahead, Scottish Life’s Alasdair Buchanan said: “2013 certainly would expect to have new business from AE. We have existing customers who are going to use Scottish Life for AE – that means more business coming to us than in the past.

“We fully expect that with the quality of our overall investment proposition that advisers will also be bringing in new clients so we expect that within 2013 we will all be receiving good volumes of business from the corporate market from auto-enrolment.”

However, he highlighted that it is difficult to fully predict the level of new business coming through because of a number of uncertainties around AE pending the outcome of the DWP review of consultancy charging, and a possible simplification of AE processes for small and medium-sized employers.

Buchanan added: “There are going to be a lot of people auto-enrolled over the next few years – and a few of those will be in 2013 – which will be positive for new business. There are nevertheless uncertainties in the company pension market which are unhelpful and the sooner we can get the certainty and plan accordingly, the better.”

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