The Royal Star & Garter Home for Disabled Ex-Service Men and Women Pension Scheme has completed a £16m buy-in with Just Group, securing the benefits of 251 members.

The transaction, completed in November 2025, covered 186 pensioners and 65 deferred members.

The scheme is sponsored by Royal Star & Garter, a UK charity providing care for veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia.

Mercer acted as lead pension risk transfer adviser on the deal.

Legal advice to the trustee was provided by Mills & Reeve LLP, while Just Group was advised by its in-house legal team.

Royal Star & Garter chief executive, Andy Cole OBE, said securing members’ benefits had been a key priority.

“Our priority when securing this transaction was to ensure that our valued retired team members had their benefits fully secured for the long term," he added.

“It has been positive working alongside the trustee and Mercer to achieve this.”

Just Group deal manager, Jerome Johnston, stated: "This deal demonstrates Just’s ability to work with schemes of all sizes and types, including charities, and to leverage our streamlined pricing service, Beacon, to deliver an actionable price, in a competitive process.

"We believe that we have achieved a great outcome for members.”

Echoing this, Zedra Governance Limited professional trustee, Alan Greenlees, said the buy-in represented the delivery of a long-term objective for both the trustee and the charity.

“This has been a truly collaborative effort between the trustee, charity and all of our advisers, where we served a common objective of securing the best outcome for members,” he continued.

“It is particularly rewarding to see this being achieved ahead of time. Just’s proposition really spoke to us about positive member experience and made the selection straightforward.”

Mercer risk transfer consultant, Cara Gordon, added that the transaction demonstrated the adviser’s ability to deliver value for smaller schemes.

“Using Mercer’s tried and tested, streamlined approach, we received multiple insurer quotes, securing a deal that met both the trustee and charity’s selection criteria and fully supports the scheme members,” she stated.

This article was first published on our sister title, Pensions Age.

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