Legal & General completes £230m bulk annuity deal

(ShareCast News) - Legal & General said it has completed the UK's largest medically-underwritten bulk annuity deal with an unnamed UK defined benefit pension scheme.The insurer and investment manager said the deal is a buy-in, for around £230m in pension liabilities, covering specific scheme members.Legal & General's Pension Risk Transfer team has written over £1.1bn of business during the fourth quarter, while pension scheme activity remained brisk over the quarter with transactions covering 13 schemes and more than 18,000 members.Legal & General Retirement has internationalised its business in 2015, with entry into the US and European pension risk transfer markets.In October, the company announced its first pension risk transfer deal with the US subsidiary of Royal Philips for around $450m, and in December it completed a €200m reinsurance deal with Dutch Insurer ASR Nederland NV.Kerrigan Procter, managing director of Legal & General Retirement, said: "The deal signs-off an excellent year for the business, with our entry into the US and Dutch pension risk transfer markets, and our first medically underwritten bulk annuity deal completed."We enter 2016 with a strong international pipeline. I'm confident we'll build on the success of 2015 next year. "Globally as at 30 September 2015, L&G manages an annuity book of over £43bn, and provides annuity benefits to over a million customers.