LIMRA: Q3 Marks Highest Recorded Quarterly Sales for PRT Buy-In Products

Single-premium pension risk transfer buy-in sales rose 328% to $4.3 billion in the third quarter of 2025, marking the highest quarterly sales for buy-in products on record, according to LIMRA’s U.S. Group Annuity Risk Transfer Sales Survey, released Thursday.

While overall PRT sales fell 32% year-over-year in Q3, the results were 137% higher than Q2 2025. In Q3, new PRT premiums paid totaled $10.6 billion. Year-to-date, total PRT sales were $21.6 billion, down 48% from the prior year.

Buy-in transactions are deals in which a pension sponsor purchases an annuity to pay ongoing pension liabilities, but the liability and the offsetting annuity contract remain on the employer’s balance sheet. A pension risk transfer buyout removes the pension liabilities and the related assets from the company’s balance sheet.

Single-premium buyout sales fell 60% to $5.2 billion in Q3 but were 39% higher than in Q2.

L&G – Asset Management, America reported in October that the average corporate pension funding ratio hit 105.5% on October 31, continuing a seven-month hot streak of pension funding improvements. When pension funding ratios are high, PRTs can be beneficial to plan sponsors looking to offload some or all of their pension liabilities to an insurer.

According to Legal & General Retirement America, the U.S. institutional retirement division of the Legal & General Group, Q3’s two jumbo transactions—defined as those exceeding $1 billion—helped lift premiums for the year. L&G estimated that Q3 premiums closed at about $9 billion, $6.5 billion less than Q3 2024 but nearly double the first half of 2025.

“While the jumbo market has been quiet in 2025, we are seeing significant activity with small contracts,” said Keith Golembiewski, LIMRA’s assistant vice president and director of annuity research, in a statement. “More than 80% of the contracts sold this year were less than $50 million, signaling broader market interest in these pension liability mitigation solutions.”

LIMRA reported that there were 183 total contracts sold in Q3, down 12% from those sold one year prior. In the first three quarters of 2025, PRT carriers sold 441 contracts, 18% fewer than the number of contracts sold over the same period one year prior.

There were five single-premium buy-in contracts reported in Q3. In the first three quarters of 2025, new buy-in premiums reached $4.7 billion, up 43% year-to-date. U.S. insurers reported 10 buy-in contracts, an 11% increase year-over-year.

There were 178 buyout contracts in Q3, up 12% from Q3 2024. Over the first three quarters of the year, there were 431 buyout contracts totaling nearly $16 billion, down 56% from the same period in the prior year.

L&G Retirement predicted a positive outlook for Q4.

“The first three quarters of the year may have been slower than last, but the fourth quarter is coming in strong with a significant rebound in anticipated volume,” L&G’s PRT monitor stated. “We estimate the year to finish between $45 [and] $50 billion with Q4 projected to be among the largest quarters to date at an estimated $29 billion, setting the stage for the second half of 2025 to be one the largest on record.”

The report stated that L&G expects three more jumbo transactions to close in Q4, totaling six jumbo transactions in 2025. The firm expects buy-in transactions to more than double by the end of this year, compared with years prior, as plan sponsors look to “lock in pricing early in their de-risking journey.”