LONDON (Alliance News) - Legal & General Group PLC has forecast that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's changes to pensions rules could result in the GBP12 billion a year annuity market more than halving in size, according to the Financial Times.
The measures introduced in the Chancellor's 2014 Budget will give savers savers more flexibility in how they use their pension pots in retirement.
According to the FT, Legal & General said the measures could cut total annuity sales by all providers to GBP4.4 billion.
"When the dust settles, we think sales across the market will shrink from GBP12-billion-a-year to between GBP4.4 billion and GBP6 billion," said Adrian Boulding, pensions strategy director with L&G, in an interview with the Financial Times.
However, the life insurer said most of its own annuity sales came in 2013 came from bulk annuities - not the individual annuities targeted in the Budget.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b66f77a6-b427-11e3-a102-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2x35VSmsr
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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