Royal London, the mutually-owned insurance group, said it is already pulling in new business thanks to George Osborne's pensions reforms – and predicts it will do better still once the changes bed in from next April.

Phil Loney, chief executive of the insurer, said today: "You can already see the effect has started to kick in; our sales of drawdown funds [post-retirement investment funds offered as alternatives to annuities] are up 23%.