In recent years firms have stuffed a lot more money into their final-salary pension schemes. With a fair wind from more favorable markets, that helped to plug the big deficits that had emerged.
Now it turns out that some of the improvement may be illusory. The Pensions Regulator said this week in a consultation paper that it will insist on tougher assumptions about longevity trends when the trustees responsible for the schemes get actuarial valuations. The new guidance will increase pension liabilities.
Actuaries have been caught out by startling falls in death rates among older people. In the 1980s life expectancy for men aged 65 rose by a year. In the 1990s it went up by two years, and official forecasts suggest that it will increase by 2.5 years in the current decade. Gains for women aged 65, who live longer than men, have been less dramatic -an extra year a decade in the 1980s and 1990s -but they have also picked up, to 1.5 years, in the 2000s.
These b
A. Because it can plug the big deficits that have emerged.
B. Because it will raise life expectancy assumptions.
C. Because it may be more realistic.
D. Because the scope for further gains in life expectancy is clear in the gap between Britain and other countries.
In recent years, researches have
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