Annuities

In THE world of annuities, the differences in life expectancy between men and women make a real difference - the longer someone lives, the more money the provider will ultimately have to pay out.

Dave Grimshaw, a senior life insurance actuary and spokesman for industry body The Actuarial Profession, has calculated that a man and a woman each aged 65 with 100,000 of pension savings to invest may find the man being quoted an annuity of around 500 a year more than the woman.

This reflects the insurance company's expectation to pay the pension for 21 years on average for a man, but 24 years for a woman.

The ruling could mean that insurers will have to tread a fine line between the risk of losing profit by pricing unisex rates too generously or losing business by pricing too conservatively.