Life has suddenly got much harder!
panic buttonLife and Pension funds were down 12% in the third quarter of the year resulting in the industry going into the red for the year to date. The data compiled by actuarial consultants Milliman comes in the wake of the Irish Government trying to offload Irish Life Assurance. It also highlights to a degree the problems faced by Aviva which recently announced some savage job cuts in Ireland.
The industry had suffered significant falls between 2008 and 2010 but was back up 3% at the half way point this year with commentators saying that the worst was over.
Nothing however is that simple in this Irish economic minefield and the latest data to emerge up to the end of September shows an overall drop in sales year-to-date down by 2%.
Looking at the breakdown, the worst performing products in the latest quarter were single premium life insurance sales. These actually fell by over 30% to €23m against the other two quarters where their sales actually rose by 25%!
Another product, Annual premium pensions, nose-dived in the third quarter by 19% to €56m although this was just a continuation of their losses earlier in the year.
The best performing product, if that’s the right word to use here, was single premium pensions, up 6% in the third quarter to €75m, with this category up in total almost 15% since the start of the year.
And the government wants to sell Irish Life Assurance! Against this backdrop, the second round of bids made for the company last week will certainly make minds think twice about the value and also the short to medium term future of Life and Pension sales in Ireland.
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