Insurance companies or pension annuity providers are essneitally gambling on your mortality/how long you are going to live when they set your annuity rate. If you die before they predict, they profit from your annuity. If you live longer than they think, you profit at the expense of the insurance company. Therefore, in order for the insurance companies to remain profitable, they employ pension actuaries who assess the mortality risk of the nation and set the annuity rates.
If an insurance company expects you to not live for very long, it is prepared of offer a higher annuity rate in exchange for your pension fund because it expects that it won't have to pay out for as long. Therefore, if you have health issues that are likely to affect/lower your life expectancy, then you could be entitled to an ill health or impaired life pension annuity. There are many different factors that pension actuaries and insurance companies use when setting their mortality and annuity rates. More recently they have been using your post code because they recognise that certain parts of the UK have lower life expectancy than others. For example, Scotland and Glasgow in particular is associated with the highest rates of heart attacks and heart disease so if you have a post code in certain parts of Scotland, you can get a higher annuity rate from some insurance companies because, putting it bluntly, they expect you to die before people from other parts of the UK. If you are thinking of purchasing an annuity, please contact Annuity Arrow and we will take this and your health issues into account to find you the best possible annuity.
Some articles on UK life expectancy:
Daily Mail article and map of UK lowest life expectancy
BBC article on UK life expectancy. Lowest life expectany in UK is in Scotland
