Pension Insurance Corporation Group, the parent company of Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), has announced profits of £477m before tax for 2018.

Publishing its full-year results, PIC Group reported a profit increase of £94m year-on-year, up from £383m in 2017. The firm’s embedded value increased by 24 per cent to £3.6bn, up from £2.9bn in 2017.

It also revealed that new pension insurance business was £7.1bn worth of premiums, up from £3.7bn in 2017, including clients such as BHS, Siemens and Rentokil. A record £5.6bn of longevity exposure was reinsured during the year, with 74 per cent of PIC’s reserves reinsured for longevity risk in total at year end (2017: 73 per cent). In total, 192,100 pension fund members were insured, up from 151,600 in 2017.

It performance lead to PIC being re-assigned an Insurer Financial Strength credit rating of A+ by Fitch. In addition, 97 per cent of PIC policyholders expressed overall satisfaction with its service; 85 per cent gave the maximum score.

Commenting, PIC plc chief executive officer, Tracy Blackwell, said: “The group had an outstanding year, with all parts of the business pulling together to complete £7.1bn of new business, almost double the amount that we transacted in 2017. Backing this record level of new business was the reinsurance of £5.6bn of longevity risk, a record, as well as £2.5bn invested directly in areas like social housing and renewable energy, also a record. I am incredibly proud of how the whole team performed during the year.

“It is quite amazing that in what was the tenth anniversary of our first transaction, signed in the summer of 2008, the overall value of the business, as measured under embedded value, now stands at £3.6bn and we have a portfolio of £31.4bn of financial investments. This is a quite outstanding achievement, built on an absolute focus on our policyholders and the standard of customer service they receive."

Share Story: