Guarantees in Retail Products – Do they have a Future in the UK?

Speakers / Working Party Members

Brandon Horwitz

Brandon is a Principal Consultant at NomBon Consulting, a boutique management consultancy. He is also a Non-Executive Director of London & Colonial Assurance, an insurance company providing flexible annuities, and Options Corporate Pensions UK, a workplace pension provider and pension administrator.

Brandon’s previous roles include launching the Vitality Invest proposition and being responsibility for HSBC UK’s regulated financial advice proposition and conduct risk management for wealth management products. He has also worked as an asset management Technical Specialist at the FSA (now the FCA), as an Investment Banker and Portfolio Manager at Morgan Stanley and in investment consulting at Watson Wyatt (now Willis Towers Watson).

Brandon is a Fellow of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries and holds a M.Sc. in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics as well as a B.Sc. (Honours) in Actuarial Science/Maths of Finance from WITS university.

Brandon’s was also chair of the IFoA Finance & Investment Board from 2014-2016 and a Board member from 2009. He chairs the IFoA Long Term Product Guarantees Working Party and is also a member of the IFoA Pension Dashboard Working Party.

John Manion

John Manion is a capital markets professional and actuary with 30 years of experience working with many global corporate, pension and insurance clients on both asset and liability related issues. He has held leadership roles in consulting and asset management firms. He is currently the Managing Partner of Long Castle, a specialist asset management firm as well as providing advisory services for insurance related transactions. Previously he led the European office of SECOR Asset Management with fiduciary multi-asset mandates and risk overlays for clients in multiple countries. Earlier in his career he spent over 20 years in consulting at a predecessor firm of Willis Towers Watson in both Australia and the UK.  While there he held a number of roles including co-leader of the London Global Consulting Group and the firm’s pension de-risking business.  He has worked with clients on all areas of pension consulting across multiple countries including multiple transactions of all types.   John is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Actuaries Institute (Australia), a CFA Charterholder and holds an Economics degree from Macquarie University. 

Rebecca Macdonald

Rebecca is a senior manager in the PwC actuarial team, specialising in with-profits management and capital optimisation. She has significant experience in considering fair treatment of with-profits policyholders, including investigating with-profits restructuring options, fair valuation of industrial branch business and assisting clients in responding to FCA feedback.

Jonathan Kemp

Jonathan is a partner in the BWCI actuarial team. He has held leadership roles in consulting, insurance and fund platform firms. He specialises in providing actuarial and consultancy services to life and non-life insurance companies, and in providing calculation agent services in support of longevity swaps. This includes advising clients across multiple jurisdictions on compliance with local solvency regulations and on changes to international accounting standards. Jonathan has more than twenty five years’ experience working in financial services, initially in the UK but also including thirteen years in Malta and Bahrain.   Jonathan is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and holds a degree in theoretical physics from the University of York.

Evrim Arkut

Evrim is a senior global pricing actuary working for SCOR Life in London, with a focus on pricing methodology and major deals.

Prior to joining SCOR in early 2020, Evrim worked for Willis Towers Watson.  She worked as a consultant actuary in London before moving back to Istanbul in 2011 to establish and manage their Insurance Consulting and Technology business in Turkey where she led several product development and pricing projects, strategy market assessments as well as M&A transactions and IPOs. 

Evrim also worked for Aviva between 1999 and 2008, as an actuarial analyst in Aviva’s headquarters in London, and then as the marketing and projects actuary of Aviva’s life business in Turkey, during their merger with a local bancassurer and as the appointed actuary afterwards.

Evrim holds a BSc degree in mathematics from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul and an MSc degree in actuarial sciences from City University, London.  She is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and she also volunteers as a member of Life Standards and Consultations Sub-committee.

Nisha Bajaj

Nisha Bajaj is one of the renowned Financial Advisors of Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Limited (ABSLI). Since 2003, she has been working diligently towards helping her client in taking financial decisions through the protection counseling tool provided by the organization. She has been adding feathers to her crown by getting selected for the renowned Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), the USA for 9 times. MDRT, the Premier Association of Financial Professionals, is an international, independent association of more than 39,000 members, or less than 1 percent, of the world's most successful life insurance and financial services professionals from 491 companies in 87 nations and territories. MDRT members demonstrate exceptional professional knowledge, strict ethical conduct and outstanding client service. MDRT membership is recognized internationally as the standard of sales excellence in the life insurance and financial services business.

She is also currently managing more than 200 Premium HNI Clients and is amongst the top financial advisors of the country. This AMFI Registered Advisor has been continuously adding outstanding achievements to her bag. Few of them are: Received NAARI SHAKTI Award in 2016 for her outstanding contribution to the society from Public Relations Council of India.