'Stars align' to boost health of UK schemes to more than pre-Covid levels
LGIM says the funding level of schemes on an EPBM basis is now 97.1%
The health of the UK’s defined benefit (DB) pension schemes has surpassed that of their pre-Covid levels as they continued to recover through final quarter of 2020, Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) research reveals.
LGIM's health tracker - a monitor of the current funding situation of UK DB pension schemes - found the average DB scheme could expect to pay 97.1% of accrued pension benefits as of 31 December 2020, up 1.6 percentage points from 30 September 2020.
This compares to the pre-Covid level of 96.5% from 31 December 2019 as well as the lows of 31 March 2020 which saw the EPBM (expected proportion of benefits met) metric drop to 91.4%.