They don't need to do anything more as there's an insurance arrangement in place for current schemes.

As for the companies that went under before 1997.......

 

With whom? Not that American one!

Think you'll find it's self-insured, and how exactly does one determine the level of payout? 90% of ongoing payments is fine, but new retirees will be hit...

 

It's an industry wide insurance arrangement, essentially (read politically) govt backed.

It's run like a pension scheme, i.e it takes money now to pay for pensions in the future. The money is collected via levies from current DB pension schemes. It extremely prudently funded. Levies are paid annually, are based around several different risk measures and can go up or down.

Pension schemes enter the insurance arrangement at the point their company becomes insolvent. Current pensioners get 100% of their pension (subject to an annual cap of around

 

That's the one!

It will be interesting to see how things pan out!