MUNICH (Reuters)—The world's biggest reinsurer, Munich Re, has joined a consortium of banks, insurers and pension experts backing a campaign to build a liquid trading market to transfer longevity and mortality-related risks to the capital markets.

Munich-based Munich Reinsurance Co. has joined the Life and Longevity Markets Assn. following Britain's second-biggest insurer Aviva P.L.C. in December, boosting the organization's membership to 12, the LLMA said Tuesday.

The reinsurer joins AXA S.A., Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Legal & General, Morgan Stanley, Pension Insurance Corp., Prudential, RBS, Swiss Re and UBS.

The LLMA was set up last year to construct capital market instruments to slice longevity risk into tradable portions—similar to the way in which the world's biggest perils, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, are protected against by shifting the risk to investors via catastrophe bonds.

On Tuesday, the LLMA also announced that member firm JPMorgan's LifeMetrics longevity index—a toolkit for measuring longevity and mortality risk in England and Wales, United States, Netherlands and Germany—will be used to help develop the LLMA's own indices.

"All LifeMetrics Index data, the culmination of four years of investment by JPMorgan, will now be made available through the LLMA for the benefit of all market participants," the LLMA said in a statement.

The LLMA said it was working on a mortality index that can be used as a global benchmark for trading longevity and mortality risk—which it hopes to launch in the "near future."

"The LLMA will combine the existing LifeMetrics technology with the association's own development work to launch the LLMA's own indices later in the year," said the LLMA.

Costas Yiasoumi, chair of the LLMA's Accessibility Committee, and head of longevity solutions at Zurich-based Swiss Reinsurance Co. Ltd., said the insurance industry's capacity to write longevity risk is limited and the "establishment of a capital market investor base will contribute towards the long term availability of longevity solutions."

"To achieve this goal, buyers and sellers in mortality index transactions need comfort that there are recognized pricing standards, actuarial data and indices that both sides can use as the basis for a transaction," he said.

In February, JPMorgan completed a £70 million ($115.2 million) swap contract with the Trustees of the Pall UK Pension Fund, based on the future values of its LifeMetrics longevity index.

The deal signifies a growing trend from pension plans and insurers to hedge against the risk of people living longer than expected.