A new survey from MetLife finds that plan sponsors' interest in pension risk transfer will continue to grow following a robust year for de-risking in 2018.
Seventy-six percent of defined benefit plan sponsors with de-risking goals said they intended to completely divest all of their company's DB plan liabilities at some point in the future, and 33% intended to do so in the next five years.
"The poll findings indicate a trend in increased pension risk transfer activity as we anticipate plan sponsors will want to proactively deal with the cost and volatility of their plans," Wayne Daniel, senior vice president and head of U.S. pensions at MetLife, said in a statement.
"As a result, many will begin to look more closely at the $3 trillion of DB plan liabilities that have not yet been de-risked and begin to evaluate how they can address this."
Four out of five plan sponsors surveyed reported that they were likelier to consider an annuity buyout now that there had been several big, well-publicized instances of major corporations entering into annuity buyout deals with insurers.
