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According to Aon Consulting, this rise in the pensions accounting deficit was largely as a result of falling corporate bond yields increasing the value of liabilities, combined with the pressure on trustees and companies to move away from high risk assets, such as equities.

As a result, the latest Aon200 Index showed that total asset losses within the top 200 privately sponsored final salary pension schemes since September 2007 now amount to £50bn.

Aon explained that scheme deficits have been more volatile this year than ever before, because of the uncertainty over how much of a place equities should continue to have in a scheme’s portfolio.

This has resulted in many schemes delaying rebalancing their assets to restore benchmark equity allocations, and as a result most schemes are now in the region of 5 to 10 per cent underweight to equities following recent fall in equity prices.

Sarah Abraham, consultant and actuary at Aon Consulting, said: "Whilst market volatility coupled with changes to legislation may increase the pressure on trustees to move out of equities, trustees and sponsors must think carefully before eliminating too much of their equity exposure.

"It should not be forgotten that these assets still have significant advantages for pension schemes.

"Despite their inherent volatility, the expected return on equities is higher than on fixed interest assets, meaning that over the long term the risk should be 'rewarded'.

"Furthermore, in the long–term, equities should provide an inflation linked return that is likely to reflect the benefits promised by the scheme better than a fixed interest investment."

Abraham added: "We expect to see alternatives such as diversified growth funds becoming more popular because they represent a good compromise for trustees.

"These funds incorporate some equity investment but the volatility of the portfolio is reduced by introducing assets which are expected to behave in a different way to equities given the same market pressures."