Canada Life insurer in JP Morgan longevity deal
LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The UK division of insurer Canada Life (CL_pb.TO) emerged as the institutional investor which sealed a deal to hedge 500 million pound ($901 million) of longevity exposure with JP Morgan Chase & Co.
A JP Morgan spokeswoman confirmed to Reuters on Monday that a deal involving "long dated" longevity swaps had taken place, but did not identify the insurer.
"While there are no details available from Canada Life, we can confirm that they are the UK insurer involved in the longevity deal with JP Morgan," a spokeswoman for Canada Life said on Tuesday.
In February, JP Morgan signed another deal with insurer Lucida, which specialises in taking on longevity risk and corporate pension schemes.
The nascent longevity swap market could see a lucrative future as pension schemes, whose assets are valued at above $20 trillion, seek to hedge their longevity exposure -- the risk that people on live longer on average than expected.
A longevity swap helps pension schemes and insurance companies manage the risk of increasing life duration by enlisting a counterparty to pay pensions.
In return, the scheme pays the counterparty an agreed stream of cash, which is generally an estimate of the future pension payments by the counterparty, based on an assumed future level of improvement in longevity.
(Reporting by Cecilia Valente; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
