Health, Care and Protection Conference 2016

Chair, Health, Care and Protection Conference programme committee

Rejuvenation Biotechnology: Why the Days of Age-related Morbidity and Mortality are Numbered

Aubrey de Grey, Biomedical gerontologist, Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation and Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research

From Financial Insurance to Health Insurance  

Andy Couchman, Co-chairman of Protection Review, managing director of Bank House Communications and one of the UK’s leading commentators and consultants on life and health insurance

A1: Health Insurance in 2050: A Medical Perspective  

In this session we will give a medical perspective on the emerging trends and developments that have the potential to disrupt health insurance, as we know it today, in the mid-long term future.

Speaker: Dr Ali Hasan, VitalityHealth

A2: Inconsistency in Underwriting – Cause and Effect

Insurers take care over the accuracy of underwriting decisions made on a case-by-case basis. Effort is spent on internal controls and audits to minimise technical errors, however, these tools aren’t designed to pick up variations in the consistency of decisions.
A Gen Re survey reveals variations in the approach to similar risk within underwriting teams. The results can highlight inconsistency because the survey compares decisions made on identical risks.
There were many lessons to be learnt and participating companies were surprised to learn that some underwriters were offering more generous terms or even accepting what could be considered unattractive risks.

Speaker: Jon Rowlands, Gen Re

A3: Well, Well, Wellness (and Wearables)

RGA has extensive experience working with insurers on wellness and wearable initiatives across the globe.  We have recently concluded the most extensive study of its kind in the world, using some of the most advanced devices in over 20 countries across 6 continents.

In this session, we will share details of this study and its insights, including:

How participants’ behaviours and interactions changed with incentives
Differences across regions and cultures
Reasons given by non-participants for not joining in
Implications and challenges for the UK market

Speaker: Jonathan Hughes, RGA

A4: Group Protection – Lessons Learned in Recent Times

The presentation will include several bite-size sections including:
- Recent trends in Group Income Protection and Group Life claims experience, including any lessons learned and actions taken.
- Product developments – what has and hasn’t worked; what the barriers have been.
- Potential considerations for the future. 
Deep technical understanding of Group business is not required as the session will begin with a brief introduction to the market and products.

Speakers: Natalie Bentley and Paul Bryant, Legal & General Assurance Society

B1: Big Data Hype or Reality (Input from CRO Forum)

Big Data and Analytics may lead to major changes in health insurance, both for the business and for the risk management. This session summarizes the key messages from a recent article of the CRO Forum which provides a roadmap and practical tools for CROs how to deal with Big Data related opportunities and challenges. It also introduces some practical Big Data and Analytics use cases from different health insurance markets and explains the involved new requirements to actuaries/analysts.

Speakers: Stephen Bishop and Andreas Bayerstadler, Munich Health

B2: Sport is Good for You......KO

The purpose of the session is to explore the sometimes cosy, sometimes antagonistic relationship between the Insurance Industry and Sport. Insurers use sports regularly for promotional purposes, customer engagement and encouraging healthy lifestyles. Underwriters sometime do not exhibit the same warmth. In one of the more fanatical parts of the country for supporting sports and between major rugby and football international tournaments it seems an appropriate time to air this subject.

Speakers: Ian Sissons, Munich Health and Matt Bone, Munich Re

B3: Scottish Widows Protect:  Ready, Steady, Launch! 

Scottish Widows Protect - from initial conception to delivery. This talk will look at the ups and downs of taking Scottish Widows back into the intermediary market through the eyes of both Scottish Widows and SCOR, one of their development reinsurance partners.

Speakers: Hannah Cook, SCOR and Scott Cadger, Scottish Widows

B4: Later Life Insurance Products: A Panel Debate

Members of the working parties associated with later life, including long term care, will host a debate on the potential for later life insurance products. After giving a brief update on the research activities of each working party they will open the floor and invite a lively discussion.
Topics for discussion could include needs and demands of the later life market, sustainability of UK funding systems, new products to fill care funding gaps and integration with pension freedoms.  

Speakers: 

Hamish Wilson. Long Term Care Working Party

Elaine Murphy,  Products Impact Group

Thomas Kenny, Products Research Group

The Changing World of Work: Digitalisation and Flexible Working

John Knell, author of The 80 Minute MBA, will talk about the challenges and opportunities of the digital workplace, and sketch out what they mean for organisations, business leaders and teams. How can you help create workplaces cultures that will increase productivity and employee satisfaction? How is digitalisation making it easier for you to work with suppliers and customers and learn if you’re suffering from hurry sickness, and why you need to do something about it. 

Speaker: John Knell

C1: Expanding the Reach of Protection

Presenting highlights and key outcomes from SCORs protection seminar. The theme of the seminar is “Expanding the reach of protection” and will be highlighting what we can do collectively and as individual companies to grow the overall protection industry in the UK and Ireland.
This presentation will be summarising the views from our guest speakers from outside our industry and also a number of prestigious industry personnel on a variety of topics including underwriting processes, big data, the role of technology, marketing / education, alternative distribution and lessons from overseas markets.

Speakers: Bryce Shepherd and Hannah Cook, SCOR Global Life

C2: Insurance Implications of the Major UK Health Issues

The precise format of the session will be subject to further development but the intent is to look at one or both of the major current health issues of diabetes and mental health problems from the perspective of the medical profession including how the management of these conditions might change in future and the implied long term consequences for health and protection products.The intention is to involve both medical and insurance personnel in this paper and presentation.

Speaker: John Graham, Munich Health

C3: Buy British because it's Best?

If you had access to the protection products from around the world would you really buy British? How well do our products meet the needs of our customer? We will look at some of the innovative products available from continental Europe, Africa and Australia and ask whether they would better meet what the British customer really wants.

Speakers: Bill Baker and Martin Langkjaer, Swiss Re

C4: Evolving Embodiment of Risk: The Case of Alzheimer’s Disease

The paradigm for the commonest form of dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, is that brain changes occur many years before there are any clinical symptoms but most patients do not receive the diagnosis until intervention is too late.  The development of effective treatments depends upon the recognition of the disease in its pre-clinical state through the use of biomarkers. 
We present the current state of biomarkers in Alzheimer’s Disease and explore the implications for the insurance industry of identifying the “pre-symptomatically ill”

Speakers: Chris Ball and Adele Groyer, Gen Re

D1: How Cognitive Bias Leads to Sub-optimal Decision Making

Actuarial decision making should be logical and rational.  However the emotional, often subconscious, side of the brain will not only impact but over-rule the logical.  Jason will explain, with real-life examples, how this leads to irrational and sub-optimal decision making.

Speaker: Jason Hurley, Guy Carpenter

D2: Developing and Pricing an Innovative Long Term Medical Insurance Product

The presentation will cover the development and launch of the Your Health Fund product from National Friendly. This new medical insurance product is innovative in a number of ways which meant that a number of interesting issues had to be resolved during the design, pricing and implementation of the product. The design and pricing process was carried out in house by National Friendly personnel with the assistance of Peter Gatenby of Peter Gatenby Consulting and the presentation will be made jointly by Peter Gatenby and Amanda Brown, Chief Actuary of National Friendly.

Speakers: Peter Gatenby, Peter Gatenby Consulting and Amanda Brown, National Deposit Friendly Society

D3: The Lost Generation - Overstated Mortality Improvements for Younger Lives?

Over the last decade, great strides have been made in longevity modelling with a focus on allowing for the so-called "Golden Cohort" of lives, arguably this has led to more credit being given for higher mortality improvements in Protection portfolios - we will examine the more recent birth cohorts & impacts.
- A brief review of recent longevity developments
- Recent trends on mortality improvements by age
- Age-Period-Cohort models for younger lives
- The presence of recent cohort effects and the   extent to which they will persist
- Drivers of recent cohort effects
- What this means for protection liabilities

Speaker: Matt Smith, Pacific Life Re Limited

D4: Update on Regulatory Hot Topics

Members of the Regulatory Team at the IFoA will provide an update on IFoA regulatory issues which are of direct relevance to members working in the Health and Care environment .  
The session will provide an opportunity to keep right up to date with  what is happening in your professional body.

Speakers: Members of the Regulatory Team, IFoA

Genome Testing - The Implications for Insurance

Professor Nicholas Wood, Swiss Re

The Unknown Unknows: Predicting Tomorrow's World

Paul Casey, Hannover Re and Charles Leadbeater,  Author and renowned strategic thinker 

E1: #itslikethefuture - Millennials and How To Engage Them

The Millennial generation — born between 1980 and 2000 — totals 2.5 billion people globally but fewer than one in three of them has a life insurance policy. As the customer of the future they will wield tremendous power and demand attention. Why are they in no rush to buy despite grasping the importance of a stable financial future? Their unique attitude and behaviors mean a fresh approach to marketing financial services. Millennials would benefit from doing more and earlier financial planning. Insurers wishing to attract them face a challenge to understand this important population group and engage them as consumers.

Speaker: Manraj Purewal, Gen Re

E2: The Affordable Care Act: An Update and an Irish Perspective

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law in March 2010. The Act has brought fundamental changes to health care insurance in the US. The workshop will give a brief introduction to the history and evolution of the ACA. Key provisions of the ACA will be discussed and the most controversial aspects will be highlighted. Furthermore, a current snapshot of the ACA's impact on the uninsured population and medical costs will be presented.

The ACA, like President Obama, has some Irish ancestry: presenters will also compare and contrast the ACA with the regulated health insurance market in Ireland.
The workshop will conclude with a discussion of a cardinal question: Is the ACA here to stay or will it be repealed?

Speakers: Aisling Kennedy and Achim Dauser, Swiss Re

E3: Fresh Thinking in Terminal Illness

Terminal Illness is often poorly understood by claimants when they have an incurable disease and places medical professionals in an extremely difficult position where in many instances it is virtually impossible for them to predict life expectancy. There have been a numbers of views stated in the market that deal with the problems by simply removing TI as a benefit. SGL believe this is a valuable product enhancement for consumers and therefore have developed an alternative way to address the problem which does not include consumer detriment.

Speakers:David Ferguson and Gavin Maguire, SCOR Global Life

E4: Group Risk Laid Bare and Future Proofed

The presentation will have a group risk focus and would cover:
- What are the key differences (and similarities) between group and individual protection?
- How is the political and welfare agenda changing and how will this impact the market?
- What does the future of group risk look like?

Speakers: Lee Lovett, Munich Re and Paul Avis, Canada Life

F1: A Glimpse at Commercialising Innovation, Technology and Big Data

Terms such as Big Data, data analytics, mobile, online, digital, etc. have become part of the everyday corporate language. There is partial understanding as to what they mean and what the potential is. Yet, very few have been able to unlock any real or sizable value through these tools and concepts. Please join us for this session to find out more about how insurance players can approach these topics and actually benefit commercially from these concepts and developments.

Speaker: Paul Hately, Swiss Re

F2: Analytic Approaches to Managing Claim Risk in Evolving Healthcare Markets

The healthcare market is quickly evolving as pressures are causing many governments to rethink how healthcare is funded and delivered. This session gives an overview of the transitions in key markets and the implications for private insurers, including:
- Potential changes to underwriting requirements and the risk implications
- Changes to available data and new methods of analysing data
- Commercial applications of data analytics
The session targets individuals looking to learn more about healthcare and healthcare analytics.

Speakers: Andrew Harley and Michelle Waluda, Willis Towers Watson

F3: Distributer Led Propositions

The session will introduce the concept of distributers taking charge of protection propositions and describe the business models through which this can be achieved.  It will examine the salient parts of the value chain and opportunities for providers, risk takers/re-insurers, distributers and administration solutions.

Speaker: Tony Horn, Positive EV Ltd

F4: Prefer or Deter, What They do Over There, and do we Care

In a protection market with a strong emphasis on price to compete we have seen a tightening in underwriting over the years in order to gain an advantage. The market now looks like it may be ready to consider further tightening at the risk assessment stage with regard to use of application data, big data and new technologies. This could move the industry closer towards a preferred lives model similar to that which has dominated the mortality market in the United States. This talk will examine an overview of the US market, what we can learn from it and where the UK industry may be heading including differences between morbidity and mortality risks.

Speaker: Jamie Leitch, SCOR Global Life

Professional Skills Training

The need to be professional is ever present.  The world, and the world of Health and Care, has moved on from last year, but that hasn’t reduced our need to be professional.  If anything the need has increased.  This session provides an opportunity to acquire one hour towards the minimum two hours of Professional Skills Training as required by many members who need to complete the IFoA’s Stage 3 Professional Skills Training (PST) requirement under the CPD Scheme. 

Speakers: Malcolm Slee, Chair of the Professional Content Development Working Group and Christine McConnell, Head of Regulatory Compliance at the IFoA