Highlights of Life 2016 - London

Plenary 1:  The Professional Actuary – This Means You!

Speaker: Neil Hilary, Professional Skills Working Group

Workshop Session A

A1:  Models Models Everywhere

Models play a vital role in effective risk and capital management in all financial institutions, but they bring risks too. Drawing parallels with nature and science, this session gets under the lid of model risk in the financial world.

• How can we identify, measure, communicate, and manage it?
• What role do biases play?
• What do Boards need to know?
• And what should we, as individuals and as a profession, be doing about it?

Speakers:  Stephen Makin, Hymans Robertson and Rob Andrew, Standard Life
 

A2:  IFRS 4 Phase II is Happening, has the Wait Been Worth it?
The Financial Reporting Group of the profession will provide:

• A summary of the key components of the final standard, notably for annuities, unit linked and with profits contacts.
• An assessment of the implications for insurers, the interactions with Solvency II and what insurers should be doing now.
• The possible impact that the new standard and the proposed disclosures may have on the insurance sector.

Speakers: Anthony Coughlan, Richard Olswang and Kamran Foroughi, Financial Reporting Group

Workshop Session B

B1:   Optimising Annuities under Solvency II

Solvency II presents a new range of issues for European insurance companies, from reducing capital requirements (SCR) to reducing capital volatility in difficult market conditions.This presentation will focus on how reinsurance solutions have evolved to manage the complexities of the new regulatory landscape, including annuity reinsurance solutions, financial reinsurance and asset based risk transfer. The presentation will include case studies of how reinsurance solutions have helped insurance companies manage their Solvency II balance sheet from both the insurer and reinsurer perspective.

Speakers: Ian Carey, Cario Consulting and Cormac Galvin, RGA
 

B2: Big Data: Unexplored Blue Ocean in the Life Industry

• There is a large ocean of data relevant to the life industry waiting to be explored.
• New technologies and algorithms create the opportunity to exploit this resource for more sophisticated pricing, performance management and targeted marketing.But with this comes not just cyber risk but also ethical considerations.
• We explore this new ocean with real examples, with due respect for the real challenges they bring.

Speakers: David Brown and Nicole Pang, KPMG

Workshop Session C

C1:  Price Optimisation: A case study of new pricing techniques

Price optimisation techniques are standard practice in the motor insurance market, but are new to the life insurance market. This session starts by exploring the theory behind price optimisation: increasing the value of new business by analysing the propensity of individual advisers/customers to recommend/purchase an insurer's product, and setting prices accordingly. The majority of the session focuses on a ground breaking real life case study of implementing price optimisation for a protection portfolio, considering both the benefits and the practicalities of implementing these techniques.

Speakers: Alastair Black, Willis Towers Watson and Alan Clarkson, Royal London
 

C2:  Comparing Rating Methodologies to Internal Models

Credit ratings and internal models are both concerned with modelling rare events, particularly those that may precede insolvency or default. However, the modelling approaches have historically been quite different. Credit rating agencies have made heavy use of deterministic stress tests, while capping ratings where one entity’s financial woes could link to related entities. Insurance internal models are typically fully stochastic, with explicit correlation assumptions between risks. As rating agencies place increasing reliance on internal model output, Andrew Smith will explore how the two modelling worlds may be able to learn from each other.

Speaker: Andrew Smith, Deloitte

Workshop Session D

D1:   The CMI Model and High-age Mortality

An update from the CMI on two areas of current research:

• The CMI is consulting on the CMI Model in 2016 ahead of possible changes to CMI_2016, due to be published in 2017. We will summarise our research, responses to the consultation, and plans for CMI_2016.
• The CMI presented at the 2015 Life Conference on the topic of high-age mortality, and continues to investigate this topic. We will describe our further research in this area.

Speakers: Members of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee and CMI High Age Mortality Working Party
 

D2: Masterclass: Communication - Conflict Resolution

Explore the power of speaking up.  How to have difficult conversations; learn a process for conflict resolution and tips for managing upwards and managing peers.

Speaker: Simon Paine, Pop-Up Business School

Plenary 2: Impact of Brexit on the UK 

Speaker: Dr Andrew Sentance, Senior Economic Advisor, PwC