Mercer, the global consulting subsidiary of broking and advisory giant Marsh & McLennan Companies, is partnering with longevity analytics firm Club Vita.
The five-year partnership, effective immediately, will see Mercer offer Club Vita’s longevity risk reporting tools to US clients.
Mercer’s US pension plan clients will have access to Club Vita’s proprietary longevity assumptions, analytics and reporting.
In addition, the aggregate enhanced data set will also be used by Mercer’s consulting teams to provide insights and aid client decision making.
“Longevity has become a crucial focus for plan sponsors as people are living longer, particularly in the current low interest rate environment,” said Bruce Cadenhead, Chief Actuary, Mercer.
“By working with plan sponsors to collect more insightful data, we can tailor each plan’s assumptions to their participants, increasing transparency and in turn, improving the value in pension risk transfer deals. Access to this data will help to justify lower pension liabilities in some cases.”
Dan Reddy, US Chief Executive Officer, Club Vita, added, “We aggregate longevity data to aid anyone who wants to be better informed about the true cost of their pension plan.
“By combining Mercer’s data with ours, and adding in our analytical strengths, we will empower pension plan decision makers to decide the best strategies to manage the costs associated with their plans.”
“In a recent pilot program, we tested data aggregated from over 100 US pension plans,” he concluded. “We found increases and decreases in pension plan liabilities of up to 6% relative to the standard Society of Actuaries tables, with a reduction in liabilities on average.”
