The UK market has "remained resilient" throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Prudential Retirement, who closed over £1.3bn ($1.7bn)-worth of new longevity reinsurance transactions during the first half of the year alone.

The company attributed its success to pivoting quickly to virtual closings during the global coronavirus pandemic and a "vibrant" smaller end of the UK pension buy-in and buy-out market.

Prudential head of international transactions, Rohit Mathur, emphasised that volatile markets can “often bring opportunity, so it pays to be prepared", also predicting a strong end to the year for the longevity reinsurance market and a robust pipeline in the U.K. for the second half of 2020.

He continued: “While we are now in the midst of incredible uncertainty with the coronavirus, such uncertain times have strengthened our conviction that pension de-risking is an all-weather solution for our institutional client base.

“For those pension schemes that had de-risked their asset portfolio and that were ready to transact before Covid-19, there was nothing holding them back from moving forward with their deals.”

Prudential vice president, longevity reinsurance, Tom Cahill, noted that the market is "functioning very smoothly" , highlighting that the smaller end of the market in particular, has been quite active.

Cahill added: "We are proud to have reinsured the risk of many individual schemes in the first half of 2020, including one stand-alone mid-sized transaction and well over a dozen smaller schemes through our flow reinsurance offerings.”

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