BMW, the German automobiles manufacturer, has reportedly offloaded a whopping 3 Billion Pounds ($4.6 Billion) worth of longevity risk of its UK pension scheme to Deutsche Bank, in a move which marks the largest ever longevity insurance transaction undertaken till date.

The deal was carried out by the German bank's insurance subsidiary Abbey Life, which was structured in association with Paternoste, the British specialist pension insurer, in which Deutsche is a shareholder, in order to cover the pension scheme liabilities related to about 60,000 pensioners.

"This transaction represents a ground-breaking precedent in the rapidly growing market for insurance against longevity risks", said Ed Jervis, Chief Executive of Paternoster.

The longevity risks on BMW pension scheme will now be insured by Abbey Life, and some proportion of the risk will be transferred to a group of popular and experienced reinsurers, including Hannover Re, Pacific Life Re and Partner Re. All the details were shared by the bank on Monday.

Separately, Hannover Re said that it is now expecting a premium of some 80 Million Pounds a year from the deal.