Slaughter and May advised Aviva on the de-risking of the RAC (2003) Pension Scheme by way of a circa £0.6 billion longevity swap transaction involving insurance and reinsurance arrangements. The transaction allows the defined benefit scheme to reinsure the longevity risk relating to approximately 10,000 of its members. Aviva's in-house legal team also advised.
The transaction is based upon the structure developed for the de-risking of the Aviva Staff Pension Scheme announced in March 2014 (on which the Firm also advised), whereby an entity within the Aviva group acts as insurance intermediary by passing on the transfer of risk from the scheme to the reinsurer (SCOR SE); in effect allowing the swap to be brokered directly with the reinsurance market rather than through a third party.
The transaction required complex collateral arrangements to secure the obligations of the scheme and the reinsurer.
The Aviva in-house legal team was led by Jonathan Price, Katherine Morgan and Louise Donegan.