U.S. pension risk transfer volume topped $50 billion in 2024, just shy of the record-setting volume two years earlier, according to a survey from LIMRA.

Total dollar volume for pension buyout and buy-in transactions for the year ended Dec. 31 was $51.8 billion, up 14% from 2023. Of that total, LIMRA recorded $48.1 billion in buyout sales and $3.7 billion in buyout sales in 2024.

Fourth-quarter volume totaled $12 billion, down 4% from the year-earlier quarter, but volume totals of $14.6 billion and $14.2 billion in the first quarter and third quarters, respectively, drove the annual total above $50 billion, said Keith Golembiewski, assistant vice president, head of LIMRA annuity research, in a news release March 17.

He also noted that 14 of the 21 insurance companies serving the market closed at least one deal exceeding $1 billion. The 2024 volume was just short of the record-setting volume of $51.9 billion in 2022.

“The PRT market continues to expand. There were 794 single-premium contracts sold in 2024, a new record high for the U.S. market,” Golembiewski said. “While recent interest-rate declines and equity market volatility may dampen sales later in 2025, greater plan sponsor awareness of these solutions will keep interest high and sales above pre-pandemic levels.”

The two largest deals during the year were completed by International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, N.Y., and Verizon Communications Inc., New York. It was the second jumbo deal closed by each company in recent years.

In March 2024, Verizon purchased group annuity contracts from Prudential Insurance Co. of America and RGA Reinsurance to transfer about $5.9 billion in pension plan liabilities. Those contracts transferred the responsibility of paying benefits to about 56,000 retirees to the two insurance companies.

It was the second jumbo buyout transaction for Verizon, which in 2012 purchased a group annuity contract from Prudential to transfer about $7.5 billion in U.S. pension plan liabilities.

In September, IBM purchased a group annuity contract from Prudential to transfer $6 billion in defined benefit plan liabilities.

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