THE ARISING · Markets & Strategy
England and Wales Mortality Hits Record Nine-Month Low, Pressuring Annuity Pricing
People in England and Wales are dying at the lowest rate on record for the first three quarters of a year, and that is bad news for the firms that have promised to pay them pensions for life.
According to the latest update from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI), cumulative standardised mortality to September 25 was 6.4% below the ten-year average for 2016 to 2025. The record holds for both males and females across nearly all age groups tracked by the monitor. The figure comes from the CMI's Q3 2026 mortality monitor, reported by Insurance Business.
The trend has run most of the year. Q1 2026 had lower mortality than any previous first quarter. The H1 update showed mortality 5.4% below the ten-year average through June. The Q3 data, which covers week 39, shows the gain held despite summer heatwaves that pushed deaths higher in parts of the period.
Respiratory causes stand out in the data. There were 944 deaths involving COVID-19 in the first 39 weeks of 2026. The same period saw 3,215 in 2025 and 7,591 in 2024. Deaths from influenza and pneumonia were around 54,900, against a range of roughly 62,900 to 67,500 over 2023 to 2025. The CMI does not attribute causes to changes in mortality rates, so the data shows where the improvement sits but does not explain it.
Steve Bale, chair of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee, said mortality across the third quarter was at a similarly low level to 2025. "Mortality for the first three quarters of the year is at record low levels in 2026 for most age groups considered in the mortality monitor," he said. Young males are the exception. Their mortality remains around 1% above the record low set in 2012, having been rising before the pandemic.
The market consequence runs through longevity models. According to the source, the CMI_2025 projections model, published earlier this year, already reflected 2025 data. It raised life expectancy at age 65 by around eight weeks for males and six weeks for females compared with the prior version. WTW estimated that scheme liabilities would rise by around 0.5% for schemes adopting it.
If 2026 mortality stays at its current level, the source says the CMI_2026 model is likely to face the same upward pressure on life expectancy projections. That would carry consequences for reserving and pricing. That is a projection, not a published result.
The effect differs by business line. Lower mortality reduces near-term claim volumes for protection writers. Annuity providers and longevity reinsurers face higher present values on guaranteed income streams they have already committed to pay.
The pressure arrives in a busy market. WTW's 2026 De-risking report forecast pension risk transfer volumes of about £70 billion for the year. That includes an estimated £50 billion in bulk annuities and up to £20 billion in longevity swaps. Both types of deal reference CMI projections, adjusted for each scheme's own experience. A further year of lower-than-expected mortality tightens the assumptions behind them.
What the source does not say is how any single insurer or scheme will respond, or how far pricing will move. Those answers depend on each party's own experience data and model choices.
The next marker to watch is the publication of the CMI_2026 model, and whether it lifts life expectancy again as the 2026 data suggests it might.
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