February 2026
Haines Global Pensions has been working with Danish-based global advisory firm Insurance at Heart on a series of discussions and events looking at workforce health, prevention and the impact of ill-health on pensions and retirement outcomes.
In January 2026 we ran two virtual roundtables together. Participants included UK and EMEA multinationals, regional offices of US-headquartered firms, government representatives, academics and specialists in musculoskeletal health and demographic analytics. The discussions focused on the cost of ill-health, the effect of long-term sickness on workforce participation, and what this means for retirement timing, pension costs and benefit adequacy.
This work builds on our joint webinar for the International Employee Benefits Association in November 2025, which examined the growing pressure on disability systems across Europe. A clear message from that session was that workforce ill-health is not only an employment issue. It is also a pensions issue. Early exit from the workforce can increase defined benefit costs and reduce outcomes for defined contribution members who draw benefits sooner than planned.
We are now continuing this collaboration as part of the wider Keep Britain Working agenda. This includes discussions with employers, advisers, healthcare providers and policymakers on how better data, earlier intervention and more effective prevention can reduce both business costs and long-term pension risk. We are also involved in emerging discussions around the programme’s vanguard employer work.
Our joint work has also contributed to the wider debate on workforce health and retirement risk, including the European Pensions feature on disability and employment published in Autumn 2025.
Across these activities, one theme is consistent: Workforce health cannot be treated as a standalone HR or wellbeing topic. It directly affects how long people can work for, how much they can save and how sustainable pension systems are.
Haines Global Pensions was founded on the belief that people should be able to retire with an adequate and sustainable income. Reducing avoidable early retirement caused by ill-health is therefore central to our work.
We look forward to continuing this collaboration and supporting organisations that want to move from reacting to ill-health towards preventing it.