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Just Group specialises in annuities paying a fixed income to
pensioners with reduced life expectancies.
The company said income from retirement sales jumped 25% to 2.7
billion pounds ($3.68 billion) last year, while new business
profits grew by a "low double digit" percentage.
The firm added that its underlying organic capital generation
more than doubled from the previous year, exceeding its 2022
target a year early.
"Having improved and rebuilt the capital position, we've very
much swung back to growth," CEO David Richardson told Reuters.
Just Group shares were 6.3% higher at 91.20 pence by 0916 GMT,
sending it to the top of the FTSE mid-cap index. RBC analysts
described the retirement income sales as "strong", reiterating
their "outperform" rating on the stock.
Just Group and other UK life insurers have suffered in the past
few years as pension reforms have led to reduced demand for
individual annuities,
But demand has risen for so-called bulk annuities, which involve
transferring the risk of UK company defined benefit - or final
salary - pension schemes to an insurer. Such schemes are often
in deficit, causing a drag on company balance sheets.
Just Group's bulk annuity sales hit a record of more than 1.9
billion pounds in 2021 and it said there was a strong pipeline
of potential deals.
It publishes full 2021 results on March 10.
($1 = 0.7335 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain Withers and Carolyn Cohn;Editing by Rachel
Armstrong, Kirsten Donovan)
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