Pru's bulk annuity new business declines by 30%

In its full-year new business results for 2006, Prudential reveals its UK retail insurance operations achieved annual premium equivalent (APE) sales up 14% on 2005 to £689m, which it says was “driven primarily by the growth in corporate pensions and individual annuity sales”. As a result, it reports individual annuity sales grew by 22% to £2.71bn from £2.22bn, with a total of 110,000 new annuity policies written over the last year, while it says with-profit annuities sales from all distribution channels more than doubled to £37m compared with 2005. In addition, Prudential says it has si...