Companies in the UK have increased their estimates of how long their workforces are likely to live, and how much in pensions they will have to pay out as a result, according to some of the leading figures in the market for acquiring retirement funds.

Richard Willets, a partner at buyout insurer Paternoster, which has so far acquired over £2bn (€2.5bn) of pensions liabilities, said the schemes his company had looked at buying over the past 12 months had increased their estimates of life expectancy.