Hymans Robertson, the leading pensions and financial services consultancy, has promoted Iain Church to Head of Core Transactions, as part of an enhanced and expanded risk transfer team. In this newly created role Iain will be leading the firm’s drive to support smaller schemes as they reach buy-out affordability.

Since joining Hymans in 2015, Iain has specialised on risk transfer projects and has provided advice on buy-ins and buy-outs for clients ranging in size from under £10m up to several £billion. Prior to the promotion Iain was Operations Lead for Risk Transfer.

Commenting on his promotion and new role, Iain Church said:

“I’m honoured by this opportunity to lead Hyman Robertson’s ambitions to support the 1,000s of smaller pension schemes navigate the dynamic risk transfer market. This comes at a crucial time, as increased insurer busyness and focus on a large number of multi-billion pound transactions makes it harder than ever for smaller schemes to get engagement from insurers. In this market, handle-turn broking is unlikely to deliver the best results. Instead, we’ll help these schemes pursue a tailored and nimble broking approach, which generates value by playing to each schemes’ individual strengths.

As a leading risk transfer adviser, we’re ideally positioned to leverage our strong insurer relationships, deep insurer side expertise, and experience leading some of the largest and most innovative transactions in the market, to deliver great value for smaller schemes and their members. We’ve expanded and enhanced our resources in response to the growing market demand, ensuring we can support any size of pension scheme secure an excellent transaction.”

Commenting on Iain’s promotion, James Mullins, Partner and Head of Risk Transfer, Hymans Robertson, said:

“Iain’s promotion and the new resources we’ve dedicated to our team shows our commitment to providing market leading risk transfer advice to schemes of all shapes and sizes. His proven track-record and the team we’ve built will be of great value to smaller schemes, which can be an under-serviced part of the bulk annuity market. Now more than ever, there’s a real need for smaller schemes to get experienced advice on how to efficiently approach the market and get the most from insurers.”