You are here

  • Conference Sponsor: Milliman

About this event

We continue to live in a world of global uncertainty. Survival depends on our ability to simultaneously navigate through the diverse root-causes, ranging from: the consequences of Climate Change; on-going financial consequences of the COVID pandemic; or self-imposed changes in regulatory requirements and accounting standards. CILA 2021 focussed on these challenges to ensure we continue to be informed and battle ready.

All sessions have been recorded and are available to purchase and re-watch in the IFoA's Life Online Learning Resource Area, where you can find videos and audio files of selected conferences and webinars relevant to Life.

Conference Sponsor: Milliman
Plenary session Wed, 19/05/2021 - 10:00 - 11:00 IFRS 17 Discount Rates – Insights and Implications

Members of the IFoA IFRS 17: Future of Discount Rates Working party will present key highlights from their research on discount rate related issues arising under IFRS 17. The webinar will be interactive, with live polls, and an opportunity for Q&A. The session will: 

  • Provide a brief overview of the requirements of IFRS 17 on discount rates. 
  • Highlight some key topical challenges practitioners are likely to encounter in setting discount rates, for example:
    • The alignment between discount rates for direct business and reinsurance held. 
    • The extent to which economic assumptions other than discount rates need to be locked-in under the General Model. 
    • Approaches to reflect the characteristics of insurance liabilities in determining the liquidity premium.
    • Operational considerations in determining and implementing discount rates
  • Illustrate the implications of the requirements, for example: 
    • The impact of using a locked-in rate for the CSM for annuity business. 
    • How the income statement will be affected by the discount rate methodology. 
    • Meeting the IFRS 17 disclosure requirements

Speakers:

Richard Olswang, Prudential

Richard is the Group Technical lead for Prudential’s IFRS 17 implementation programme. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, Chair of the IFoA’s IFRS 17: Future of Discount Rates Working Party and a member of the IFoA’s Financial Reporting Group. He has 30 years of experience in the life assurance industry, focusing for the last 10 years on the development of IFRS 17. He has been heavily involved in the formulation of the industry’s responses to the IASB’s proposals during the development of the standard through the CFO Forum and other industry bodies. He is a member of the EFRAG Insurance Accounting Working Group and the ICAEW’s discussion group on IFRS 17.

John Jenkins, Milliman UK

John Jenkins is a Principal with Milliman UK. He has extensive experience of all forms of financial reporting, covering both the technical and the operational aspects. In addition to his interest in the discount rates aspect of IFRS17, he is also actively involved in assisting clients with the consideration of Fair Value under IFRS17 and with the application of IFRS17 to with-profits business. Prior to joining Milliman in 2020, John was for many years a partner with KPMG.

Darren Clay, The Phoenix Group

A Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries with 25 years of experience in both the development and application of methodology for various forms of external financial reporting including IFRS, Embedded value and Solvency reporting. Currently working for The Phoenix Group on the technical application of IFRS 17 for insurance contracts.

Tom Bulpitt, Athora

Tom is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and is currently Director of Capital Strategy at Athora Group. Tom was previously a consultant at Milliman in the UK where he was widely involved across the organisation in IFRS 17 research and initiatives including authoring a number of papers on the topic, including on setting discount rates. Tom has a wider interest in shareholder value, capital management and ALM.

Plenary session Wed, 19/05/2021 - 13:30 - 14:30 Insights on corporate responses to mitigate climate risks

Developing an awareness of how firms are reacting to the challenge of climate change, and hence their long term profitability, is a key building block to understand how asset values will react going forward and in different climate change scenarios. Simon Miller and Tom Curtis, co-founders and Partners of 3Keel LLP, will provide an overview and examples of the current actions from corporates, ranging from fast moving consumer goods to utilities. They will explain corporate science-based targets, and what the recent advent of 'net zero' commitments means in practice. From their perspectives as sustainability advisors, they will share insights on the drivers for action from a corporate point of view, including how heightened interest from institutional investors in climate exposure is becoming a material influence on decision-making.

Speakers:

Tom Curtis, 3Keel

Tom is a founding Partner of 3Keel, and his principal focus is on helping make the connection between sustainable businesses and sustainable landscapes. Businesses and investors across sectors are recognising that the condition of natural systems is material to their long-term ability to thrive. This is both about businesses’ impact on the environment, and the impact of degraded environments on business. Grounding himself in his practical experience, Tom works at a strategic level to understand, manage and help reverse these impacts.

As part of this work, Tom leads 3Keel’s development of the Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) programme. Cited in the UK Government’s 25-year plan for the environment, LENs aims to both ‘create business value from healthy landscapes’ and to ‘drive investment in healthy landscapes by mobilising their value to business’. Tom’s professional background is in forestry and mixed estate management, and he maintains an interest in practical land management through involvement on the organising committee for Food and Farming Consultations at St George’s House and through work with the Soil Association Land Trust, where he is Chair of Trustees.

Simon Miller, 3Keel

Simon is the Managing Partner of 3Keel, with over 15 years' experience advising firms on environmental sustainability issues, particularly focussed on climate change. Simon has worked on climate projects ranging in scale from London 2012 Olympics to bottles of fruit juice, and in 2020 he led a major programme of work for the British Retail Consortium (BRC), working with 17 BRC members to agree and define the sector's Climate Action Roadmap for net zero by 2040. He is currently leading a similar project on behalf of the food industry, for the Food and Drink Federation.

Agriculture, land use change and carbon sequestration are critical themes in tackling climate change. Simon has significant experience on these issues, including three years working as General Manager of the Cool Farm Alliance, a not-for-profit member organisation that incorporates the latest climate science to its Cool Farm Tool software which is freely available for farmers globally to assess and understand the greenhouse gas emissions of production.

Plenary session Thu, 20/05/2021 - 10:00 - 11:00 Innovation in insurance – what does the future look like?

Do you hear lots of technology related buzzwords? Do you ever wonder how these may relate to Life Insurance and your day job? Do you consider why Life Insurance seems to lag between other areas of Insurance with respect to innovation and embracing technology?

During this interactive session, we will unpack these questions and discuss how this is all relevant to us as Life practitioners. We will highlight some live applications of new technologies and techniques that are currently in use, or in development, within the Life Industry which have addressed real issues which could easily apply to you too. These use cases will range from the adoption of some of the latest technologies offered by vendors, through to in-house application development and the use of Blockchain, natural language programming and advanced analytics. We will look at GI and whether there are lessons that we can learn. And we will look at the growing insure-tech market and discuss the rate at which life insurers may need to innovate in order to compete in the future.

Speakers:

Ed Bujok-Stone, EY

Ed is a qualified actuary and Chief Innovation Officer of EY’s UK Actuarial Practice and is passionate about innovation, both within the Insurance sector and the via use of the Actuarial skill set in the wider finance domain. He has lead numerous projects in assisting financial institutions develop technology driven solutions to a wide range of processes.

 

Will Mirams, EY

Will is a Senior Manager within EY’s Life Actuarial team and leads their Actuarial Technology team. Will has spent the last 5 years working with clients to challenge, re-design and improve their Actuarial processes through the use of new technologies and new techniques. Will has worked with clients across Europe to improve processes across Actuarial and Finance functions including reporting, ALM, pricing, data quality, FP&A, and capital reporting and management. Through these engagements, Will has developed a passion for seeing clients operate a well-controlled, automated, insightful, interactive and responsive process, leaving time instead for analysis and delivering business value. He is acutely aware of the challenges insurers face with delivering such a vision, but is confident that an innovative mindsight, a curious nature, and current/emerging technologies can help us all achieve this vision.

Plenary session Thu, 20/05/2021 - 13:30 - 14:30 LIBOR transition: The final countdown

The discontinuation of LIBOR is rapidly approaching. While several financial service operators are exposed to the reform only on the asset side, insurance firms operating under Solvency II present also an indirect exposure because of the methodology used to derive Solvency II risk free rate curves. We will share our perspectives on the status of insurance firms’ transition programmes, the overall level of preparedness and biggest areas of focus to date. We will finally illustrate how technology can help with identifying LIBOR dependencies in spreadsheets, in particular to determine the extent of exposure to LIBOR related calculations and then interpret this exposure into actionability and an informed remediation plan. 

Speakers:

Nadeem Chaudhry, PWC
Nadeem leads on EUC risk (End-User Computing) in PwC's Risk Modelling Services (actuarial) practice. 

 

 

 

Matteo Ricciarelli, PWC
Matteo has a successful track record in delivering modeling solutions that range from portfolio optimization to economic scenario generators, from liability proxy modeling to asset pricing

Plenary session Thu, 20/05/2021 - 16:00 - 17:00 Equitable Life Scheme and Transfer to Utmost – a case study

The speakers will provide a practical case study of Equitable Life's (ELAS) with profits conversion and transfer to Utmost life.  It provides background and context for the conversion of With-Profits business to Unit-linked, including de-risking actions taken since the 2000 landmark court judgement and alternatives that were considered.  The speakers will discuss key considerations when designing, developing and implementing the scheme and the engagement with stakeholders including the regulators, lawyers, independent experts, policyholders etc.

The talk will comment on some of the issues and challenges faced throughout this process (a simultaneous scheme of arrangement, change in articles and Part VII transfer) which was an industry first.  It will also cover some practical measures taken to navigate these for the diverse portfolio of UK, Irish and German With-Profits business against a rapidly changing background including Brexit and the Pru-Rothesay judgement.

Speakers:

Dan Diggins, Hymans Robertson

Dan is the Head of Regulated Roles at Hymans Robertson. He was the Strategic Advisor to the CEO and Chief Actuary of Equitable for their proposed solution. Prior to that Dan was a Director at EY where he spent over a decade conceiving and implementing strategic projects for his clients.

 

Louise Eldred, Utmost Life and Pensions

Louise was Equitable Life’s With-Profits Actuary and part of the leadership team that implemented the transformation of its £4bn with-profits book and fair distribution of its £1.6bn of capital. Louise trained as an actuary at Equitable, holding various roles before becoming WPA. She is now WPA Utmost Life & Pensions.

Plenary session Fri, 21/05/2021 - 10:00 - 11:00 CIO Discussion Panel – lessons from COVID and looking to the future

This webinar has been sponsored by Milliman. 

 

In this panel discussion we get expert views from three leading investment professionals in the UK insurance industry.  We take a look at how they and their firms have been impacted by COVID-19, growth ambitions for illiquid assets and the increasingly important role of ESG in portfolio construction and governance.

Speakers:

Emily PennEmily Penn, LV=

Emily is Capital and Investment Director at LV= with responsibility for investment strategy and oversight, capital & liquidity management, ALM and unit pricing.

She has led a number of award winning, transformational capital projects including the reinsurance of a £1bn with-profits deferred annuity book and de-risking of the company’s staff pension schemes. She has been instrumental in the re-launch of LV=’s flagship Smoothed Managed Fund range with the execution of a diversified strategic asset allocation. She has also designed and implemented LV=’s responsible investing framework and more recently has played a leading role in the transaction with Bain Capital.. Prior to LV=, Emily was Head of UK ALM Advisory at RBS working with insurers to structure innovative ALM and capital solutions. Emily is a qualified actuary with a 1st Maths from Oxford. She was recognised by InsuranceERM as Young Risk Actuary of the Year, 2016.

Michael EakinsMichael Eakins, Phoenix Group

Mike is currently the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) for Phoenix Group. In his current role, Mike is a member of the Group Executive Committee, reporting into the Group CEO, Andy Briggs. In addition, Mike is an Executive Director of underlying Life Company Boards. Mike is responsible for leading all of the investment functions within the Phoenix Group, but with particular focus on (i) Illiquid Asset origination for Phoenix Bulk Purchase Annuity business, (ii) developing a leading capability for Sustainable Investments and (c) developing a best in class investment operating framework.

Robert Groves, Pension Insurance Corporation

Plenary session Fri, 21/05/2021 - 13:30 - 14:30 Global Insights for Improving UK Solvency II

Following the Treasury consultation on reforming Solvency II in the UK, a selection of areas have been identified as warranting further investigation.  We look at how risk based capital regulations are emerging globally for insights into potential ways that the UK industry may wish to take these areas forward, with a particular focus on Hong Kong where the life and health insurance market is thriving and the new regulations promote strong risk management but allow insurers to remain commercial and competitive. 

Speakers:

John Jones, EY

John is a Director in EY’s actuarial team in London and leads the life insurance capital solutions team. John has spent the past 10 years working with insurance companies across Europe, Asia and Bermuda, supporting them with all aspects of regulatory and economic capital development, from internal model application processes, to implementing capital optimisation solutions to enhance their capital position.

Nirav Morjaria, HSBC