Phone hacking and the Nobel Prize for Physics

With the Nobel Prizes being awarded today, along with the news that no further action will be taken in the News of the World phone hacking probe, it struck me that there is an obscure link between these two stories. In particular, there is a link between the phone...

The Government consultation on CPI for pensions

The Government has now issued its consultation on CPI for private-sector pensions. This raises a number of issues, and asks some challenging questions. One that will certainly generate responses is the question of whether CPI should be imposed on pension schemes,...

The Swiss Re Longevity Bond

Reuters reported recently that Swiss Re was launching a series of longevity bonds to hedge the reinsurer against longevity catastrophe risk. The bonds – issued through Caymans-based Kortis Capital on behalf of Swiss Re – would hedge Swiss Re against...

Pensions and CPI

The Government has confirmed plans to link private sector pension increases to CPI rather than RPI, bringing them into line with the proposals for public sector schemes. This could save schemes a significant amount of money – around £100bn by some estimates....

Getting it right with life expectancy

Can we be a little more responsible about the life expectancy figures we’re quoting? “The current life expectancy is 77 for men and 81 for women” it says on the BBC website. So this means that a retirement age of 66 would mean men working for over 40...