The following are active research working parties overseen by the IFoA’s Finance and Investment Board.
You can view outputs from the working parties in our Virtual Learning Environment.
All members are encouraged to volunteer for a research working party. If you have your own ideas for member-led research you would like to pursue, please contact our Practice Communities Team below or refer to our Guidance for Research Working Parties (562 KB PDF).
Members interested in volunteering for a research working party should check our volunteer vacancies.
Defined Benefit schemes that are less than 10 years from buyout face growing pressure to significantly de-risk the investment strategy, increasing the time to buyout or self sufficiency. Recent improvements in funding levels have brought forward many schemes’ journey plans –industry-wide de-risking could cause a concentration of demand in certain assets, potentially increasing the time to settle liabilities still further. Further, the various workstreams required to wind up a scheme can take several years to complete and this can cause buyout (or other settlement) to slip away before a scheme is ready to transact.
Capital Backed Journey Plans are one potential tool to mitigate these three issues. An external capital buffer enables some form of investment guarantee to be made that enables a more defined (and earlier) time to settlement, allowing other workstreams to proceed with confidence. If designed well, such a structure could improve scheme member and trustee outcomes (security of accrued rights), sponsor objectives (lower balance sheet risk and cost). While there are several potential providers offering CBJPs, it remains a new investment product with only one transaction in the public domain at present.
Given the significance of the benefits the strategy targets, further research and public understanding is needed.
Chair: Derek Steeden
Established: 2022
Deliver high-quality research on a wide range of cutting-edge topics regarding the CDI strategy to benefit all the like-minded qualified investment actuaries or students.
The working party will report findings to the appropriate IFoA committees who may use this information to support discussions with regulators and other government bodies, as well as make findings available to the wider actuarial community via presentations at IFoA events.
Chair: Kedi Huang
Membership: 5
Established: 2019
The working party will drive insights into areas where digital evolutions, including modern techniques in data science and the real-time connectivity of data sources may affect the long term savings and protection industry.
The scope of the working party will be:
The output will consider a big picture (industry wide) perspective, and visualise digital evolutions might change the outcomes for ultimate beneficiaries in the space of long term savings and protection, as well as the role of today’s intermediaries and potential responses from governments and regulators.
Chair: Angelian J Lai
Membership: 6
Established: 2020
There is a lack of knowledge which many financial institutions have about infrastructure investment. This working party will undertake research to uncover information about the risks and rewards which investing institutions are likely to experience
Many financial institutions still believe that they do not know enough about infrastructure investment. The working party undertakes research to uncover information about the risks and rewards that investors are likely to experience.
The working party since its inception has collaborated with the policy team on its policy work on Infrastructure.
Chair: Chris Lewin
Members: 12
Established: 2014
This working party aims to help members gain a better understanding of the issues the industry faced in autumn 2022. It looks to help members who may work with clients employing LDI strategies and other derivatives but are not themselves experts on the matters.
This party will touch on the background to LDI. But much of the philosophy behind setting discount rates and the rationale and prospects for precise hedging are covered elsewhere by the IFoA. The working party will therefore largely assume that a need to hedge both interest rates and inflation remains, along with the need for leverage.
Chair: Michael O’Connor
Established: 2023
There have been two successful working parties exploring the development of the private credit market covered under the Life Insurance and Finance & Investment Boards:
The key outputs of these working parties were:
Investment in private credit continues to increase across the insurance market and within pension schemes. As such, this working party is expected to pick up where these working parties left off and fill in some of the gaps.
For further information, please see the terms of reference (24 KB Word doc).
The working party has established two sub-groups: one covering managing the assets through a workout, the other one focusing on sub-IG assets, which were not research previously. The working party will also provide its thoughts on CP23/19, as it specifically targets illiquid credit assets.
Chair: Wojciech Herchel
Members: 9
Established: 2019
This working party’s focus is on the call to action, and what can be done to address the pensions gap moving forward.
Chair: Al Miles
Established: 2022
For more information about any of our practice areas, please email the Communities Engagement Team