Aviva seen strong growth in its workplace pensions business in the past year, with net flows up 6 per cent to £7.1bn, pushing the total workplace pension assets under management up to £153bn, a 19 per cent increase on the previous year.
The insurer said it had won a record 544 new schemes over the past 12 months, meaning it now had 5m workplace pension members, generating regular contributions of £1bn a month.
These figures were released as part of Aviva’s annual results, which showed overall profits at the insurer which showed a 25 per cent increase in its overall operating profits.
Within Aviva’s Wealth division, its workplace pensions outperformed sales for individual pensions, which were down 7 per cent. However its platform sales saw a 7 per cent boost.
In its retirement business Aviva saw a 41 per cent fall in its new business sales of bulk purchase annuities. These now stand at £4.6bn. However, there was a 19 per cent uplift to sales of individual annuities. It stated this was the best year for individual annuity sales since the introduction of pensions freedom rules.
In the results presentation, Aviva identified wealth as a “highly attractive growth opportunity”, particularly with nine in 10 eligible UK employees now saving into a workplace pension.
Doug Brown, head of insurance, wealth and retirement at Aviva, said: “We’re the No1 player in Wealth, with Workplace delivering a record 544 new scheme wins and net flows up 6 per cent to £7.1bn. We now look after around 5m workplace pension customers and regular member contributions have grown to £1bn a month.”
