The Association of British Insurers, the trade association for UK's insurance industry, has announced important changes to its classification system for life and pension funds.
The changes follow a detailed review of the existing Association of British Insurers (ABI) sectors, which contain over 6,000 unit-linked life and pension funds. The sectors allow investors and advisers to make like-for-like comparisons of unit-linked life and pension funds based on funds’ asset allocation.
The key changes include a new criteria for mixed asset fund sectors, including labels to highlight the equity exposure of managed fund sectors and three new fixed interest fund sectors. The proposed changes would allow the new sectors to reflect the growing number and diversity of property funds followed by the introduction of a flagging system to allow greater detail on sector sub-groupings, such as regional.
The changes will take effect on January 25, 2008.