JAB Insurance has completed its acquisition of Utmost Life and Pensions, the UK life and pensions platform that manages more than £5 billion of assets for approximately 290,000 policyholders. The move formally establishes the company as a player in Britain’s bulk purchase annuity (BPA) market under the new name JAB Pensions.
The deal, announced in December 2025 and cleared by regulators earlier this month, marks JAB Insurance’s first entry into the UK insurance market. Andrew Stoker continues as chief executive of JAB Pensions. The business will retain its focus on growing within the BPA market while servicing its existing closed book of life and pensions policies.
Anant Bhalla, executive chairman of JAB Insurance, said the group now serves more than 1.5 million policyholders globally, having closed four transactions in 18 months. “We look forward to working closely with Andrew and his team to support JAB Pensions’ ongoing growth, continue servicing policyholders and pension scheme members, and provide greater choice for pension risk solutions in the UK,” he said.
The JAB completion is the third major acquisition of a UK bulk annuity insurer to close in 2026, following Athora Holding’s purchase of Pension Insurance Corporation and Brookfield Wealth Solutions’ takeover of Just Group. LCP had forecast that all three deals would be completed in the first half of 2026, noting that sustained overseas interest in the sector was driven by the scale, maturity, and significant asset inflows of the UK bulk annuity market.
The three closings are part of a broader reshaping of the UK life insurance sector, which KPMG’s review of 2025 year-end results from 15 UK life insurers described as a record-breaking M&A wave driven largely by private capital.
The pace of that consolidation is not incidental. According to WTW’s February 2026 De-risking report, the UK pension risk transfer market could reach £70 billion in total activity this year, with the bulk annuity segment alone projected to exceed £50 billion. That market is what overseas investors with long-duration capital have found increasingly attractive.
Pension trustees and the consultants advising them now face a BPA landscape where several of the most established counterparties are under new international ownership, with all that implies for balance-sheet backing, investment philosophy, and long-term service commitments.
JAB’s pitch to trustees rests on its permanent capital model. Unlike private equity-owned platforms that operate within defined holding periods, JAB positions itself as a multi-generational investor whose liability-first approach aligns its asset strategy with policyholder obligations. Stoker echoed that framing, saying JAB’s balance-sheet management expertise would strengthen the proposition JAB Pensions offers pension scheme trustees and their members.
Utmost Life and Pensions only entered the BPA market in late 2024, completing 11 full buy-in transactions totalling £311 million before the acquisition closed.
The broader market remained highly competitive and active through the first half of 2026, with Aon estimating that H1 volumes would exceed £10 billion, driven partly by more insurers developing dedicated small-scheme propositions. JAB Pensions, still a relatively new participant by transaction count, is entering a market with scale and pricing that experienced, better-capitalised competitors have built over years.
That gap between franchise maturity and financial firepower is where trustee advisers will focus their scrutiny. Brokers and consultants running BPA selection processes routinely weigh an insurer’s track record alongside its financial strength, and JAB Pensions will need to build operational credibility alongside its balance-sheet credentials.
The retention of Stoker and his management team is a signal that JAB intends continuity rather than disruption, at least in the near term. JAB Insurance now operates across seven regulatory jurisdictions, with presence in the US, Bermuda, and the UK, and approximately US$30 billion (around £22.5 billion) in invested assets across its platform.
The UK risk transfer market’s competition has been described as “exceptionally strong” by WTW, with multiple established writers and newer entrants active. That dynamic has so far supported attractive pricing for schemes of all sizes. The wave of overseas consolidation now reshaping the carrier landscape could sustain that pressure, or gradually concentrate capacity among a smaller number of better-capitalised players.
