Bond market mayhem brings annuities back onto advisers' radars

Annuities have been in the doldrums for over a decade, in part because gilt yields - which largely determine the rates offered by insurers - have remained persistently low as a result of the Bank of England's massive Quantitative Easing programme. That round of bond buying was designed to prop up the economy after the 2007/08 banking crisis and shaped the UK's economic landscape throughout the 2020s. However, things are now shifting - and dramatically so. Gilt yields were already on the rise across the West before the Mini-Budget at the back end of September, with central banks - incl...