Longevity Risk within Pension Funds

Defined benefit pension funds bear important longevity risks, of which the main one is trend risk. This risk is linked to higher than expected increase of life expectancies of pensioners. This increase has always been underestimated for decades, leading to current underfunding of pension liabilities and important hedging need that the insurance industry capacity cannot address alone. Hence the need of solutions from the financial market which would bring on top of capacity, a better transparency on mortality level expectation.