IFoA Asia Conference

Speaker: Tan Sri Dr Jemilah

Speakers: Mark O'Dell, Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh, Dr Yap Wei Aun   

Over the past few years, RBC regimes and IFRS 17 have been rolled out in stages across Asia, with Malaysia also expected to implement its revised RBC framework next year which aligns closely with the Insurance Capital Standard (ICS). These changes are reshaping how insurers measure profitability, manage balance sheet volatility, and allocate capital.

At the same time, a more volatile macro and market backdrop – inflation, higher rates, historic tight credit spreads, and episodic equity drawdowns – is putting renewed pressure on insurers to deliver competitive returns for policyholders as well as resilient returns for shareholder, while staying disciplined on capital, liquidity, and risk appetite at the same time.

This presentation explores how insurers can rethink asset solutions to improve capital efficiency, strengthen portfolio resilience, and potentially enhance risk-adjusted returns under RBC regimes. 

Topics will include the evolving role of alternative assets in diversifying return sources and improving portfolio efficiency; investment grade securitised credit as a way to enhance yield while managing complexity risk; and equity tactical asset allocation (TAA) to manage drawdowns and capture opportunities more dynamically. We’ll also explore asset structuring solutions (e.g. securitisation, repack notes) being explored by some regional insurers to target specific outcomes, such as income enhancement.

For each solution, we’ll cover insurer suitability and use cases, potential regulatory and accounting constraints, and key implementation considerations including liquidity, transparency, governance, operational readiness, and capital treatment.

Speaker: Zhao Wei Yee,  HSBC Global Asset Management 

This study examines whether defined contribution (DC) retirement plans can deliver adequate retirement income, using income replacement ratios as the primary adequacy indicator. We propose an actuarial framework to estimate optimal contribution rates that account for uncertainties in interest rates, investment returns, and mortality, reflecting the risks faced by future retirees. Using the Entry Age Normal method and actuarial present value techniques, retirement annuity benefits and replacement ratios are derived under alternative economic and demographic scenarios. The results indicate that although higher investment returns improve retirement adequacy, plan design features, particularly restrictions on early lump sum withdrawals between ages 55 and 60, play a crucial role in sustaining retirement income. The analysis further demonstrates that uniform contribution rates may be insufficient, and that age- and gender-specific contribution strategies can materially improve adequacy outcomes. A case study based on Malaysia’s median annual salary illustrates the implications for DC plan sponsors and policymakers. The findings provide practical insights into how DC plan structures can be refined to balance flexibility, adequacy, and sustainability in the Asian retirement context.

Speakers:

• Aimi Syairah Md Sa'at, Sunway University
• Syazreen Niza Shair, Universiti Teknologi MARA 
• Norazliani Md Lazam, Universiti Teknologi MARA 

This session explores the development of the universal Base MHIT product and how it may shape the future evolution of private medical insurance in Malaysia and potentially other emerging Asian markets. Beyond product design, the discussion will cover broader healthcare financing and sustainability challenges that are becoming increasingly relevant across the region.

Topics include the evolving role of insurance as risk protection versus healthcare savings, including the use of deductibles and cost sharing to support affordability and sustainability. The session will also explore customer segmentation, risk pooling and risk equalisation, as well as the interaction between insurers, providers and regulators in managing medical inflation and healthcare utilisation. Additional discussion areas include provider engagement and reimbursement models, network management, the gradual transition towards DRG-style reimbursement and value-based care, and the role of claims management and pharmacy benefit management in improving cost efficiency and sustainability.

Drawing on examples from other healthcare systems, the session aims to provide perspectives on balancing affordability, accessibility and long-term sustainability in future private healthcare ecosystems.

Speaker: Pang Hsiang Chye,  Milliman 

Artificial intelligence has transformed insurance industry in areas such as underwriting, claims management, and customer operations.  However, actuarial functions have remained largely untouched. Actuarial models demand deep understanding of cashflows, sensitivity to local market context, and operate within local regulatory frameworks. These barriers prevent general AI tool from becoming useful.

This session will share our AI implementation experience that addresses that gap. We will share how to build an AI agent capable of working meaningfully within actuarial models, the challenges we encountered in training large language models on actuarial subject matter, and the risk management discipline required to deploy AI responsibly.

In this session, we will present on:

• Why implementation of AI in core actuarial function matters now more than ever. 
• The structural barriers to AI adoption in actuarial modelling, including consideration of the professional accountability standards that govern actuarial sign-off. 
• A roadmap on how we designed and deployed an AI agent to work with actuarial models covering the key decisions made and how to train LLM in actuarial context.
• How to manage AI risk in actuarial practice: the governance framework, human oversight mechanisms, and validation standards we put in place to ensure AI-assisted outputs remain accurate.
• Live demonstration of an AI agent working in an actuarial model in practice.
• The questions every actuarial team should be able to answer before signing off on an AI-assisted model for regulatory or financial reporting purposes.

Speaker: Mohamad Muzakkir Abd Ghafar, Milliman Advisors 

IFRS 18 introduces a fundamentally new approach to the presentation and disclosure of financial performance, replacing IAS 1 and significantly reshaping the structure of the income statement. While IFRS 18 is not insurance‑specific, its implications for insurers and takaful operators, particularly those already navigating IFRS 17, are substantial and under‑appreciated.

This session explores IFRS 18 through the lens of insurance and takaful operators, focusing on the implications for actuarial processes, performance measurement and communication. It examines how IFRS 18 interacts with IFRS 17 outputs, including the presentation of insurance service result, finance income or expenses, and non‑insurance components, and how management‑defined performance measures (MPMs) may be impacted.

The session will highlight key judgement areas where actuaries are expected to contribute, including profit sources analysis, comparability across periods, and consistency between regulatory, management and financial reporting views. Particular attention is given to takaful operators, where surplus distribution, fund segregation and stakeholder communication introduce additional complexity under the new presentation framework.

Drawing on practical implementation considerations, the talk will outline what actuaries need to understand, influence and prepare for, as IFRS 18 becomes effective and stakeholders demand clearer, more comparable performance explanations.

Speaker: Harun Kannan Rajagopal, Ernst & Young 

Healthcare systems are usually judged against familiar objectives: access, affordability, quality, and fiscal sustainability. Yet policy choices often reveal additional priorities, including healthcare sector growth, private investment, employment, medical innovation, and the use of private financing to relieve pressure on public budgets.

This presentation examines healthcare sustainability through the gap between stated goals and revealed priorities, with a focus on Singapore and Malaysia. It considers how public reforms, private-sector expansion, insurance product redesign, and prevention strategies each respond to real sustainability pressures, but may also create new financing consequences.

The session then reviews recent policy and market interventions aimed at improving sustainability, assessing their intended objectives, the stakeholder incentives they must navigate, and the practical challenges that may limit their effectiveness.

Speaker: Konrad Kuc, InHealthSights

Climate change is intensifying rainfall variability in Malaysia, exposing smallholding farmers to significant income volatility. Meanwhile, the traditional indemnity-based agricultural insurance often suffers from delayed payouts, complex claims processes, and limited availability, making it less effective for financially vulnerable farmers. Hence, this presentation proposes a rainfall parametric crop insurance framework as a practical risk transfer solution to address these gaps.

Using a data-driven actuarial framework, the parametric solution automatically triggers payouts based on predefined rainfall thresholds derived from historical meteorological data for sample geographic locations in Malaysia. The methodology integrates rainfall distribution modelling, stochastic simulation of rainfall amounts, and portfolio-level risk analysis to evaluate pricing, payout structures, and profitability under different design scenarios. Multiple product designs are assessed, balancing affordability constraints with insurer sustainability, while incorporating considerations such as basis risk, spatial risk, and operational simplicity.

Beyond product design, the presentation highlights the role of parametric insurance as a complementary solution, supported by targeted government subsidies and policy alignment in Malaysia. The presentation contributes to the actuarial applications in climate risk, offering a practical blueprint for emerging markets facing similar protection gaps.

Importantly, the presentation demonstrates practical considerations for corporates and government agencies in developing novel financial solutions to address climate-related risks for the vulnerable, thereby improving economic production.

Speakers: Muhammed Amin Hassim and Yet Chuen, Asia Pacific University

The study identifies and evaluates the impact of socioeconomic factors, environmental influences, and individual characteristics on mortality experience in major rapidly developing Southeast Asian countries – namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – over the period from 2000 to 2019.

Addressing an important gap in the existing literature, the study utilises the most recent publicly available data and places a specific focus on these key countries within the region.

A novel methodological framework was adopted, employing a binomial logistic generalised linear mixed-effects model estimated using both frequentist and Bayesian estimation techniques.

The results from this approach aligned with findings from prior research, confirming that healthcare expenditure, urbanisation, and being female are positively associated with improved mortality outcomes. 

On the other hand, income inequality, CO2 emissions, infant mortality, and age were found to be negatively associated with mortality experience. Further insights gleaned from the results of this approach include the observation of an exponential pattern in mortality rates and a widening gender disparity with increasing age.

Based on the findings and discussion, this study puts forward several recommendations for governments, healthcare providers, and life and health (re)insurance companies to support initiatives aimed at enhancing population health and promoting sustainable development in the region.

Overall, this study contributes to the advancement of actuarial science in terms of both knowledge and practice by demonstrating how robust statistical techniques, applied to the latest available data, can yield valuable insights into the determinants of mortality experience in the major rapidly developing Southeast Asian countries.

Speaker: Dr Liew Min Liang, Malaysian Life Reinsurance Group Berhad 

This presentation combines two pressing issues in the Malaysian insurance market currently: 

• Takaful moving beyond replicating conventional insurance products to true innovation
• Medical insurance innovation going beyond smoke and mirrors to ensure affordability for the B40 and M40. 

Last year over 300,000 Malaysians surrendered their medical insurance policies because it had become too expensive.  Bank Negara has worked hard to control price increases, but from an actuarial point of view there are limitations due to real increases in costs.  In order to truly make a difference we simply must change behaviors, which is where community insurance comes in.  

The concept of community insurance will go beyond pure Takaful structures to be used in other communities such as churches, temples and community centers.  The key underlying concept is a group of people who know each other and are willing to work with each other to help with medical costs relating to payments within deductibles higher than typically chosen in Malaysia and are more likely to change behaviours.  This concept extends from traditional Takaful concepts, friend assurance in Europe as well as Christian insurance concepts in some western countries.

Speakers: Hassan Scott Paul Odierno and Jeremy Visvalingam, Actuarial Partners Consulting 

Speaker: Ahmad Zulqarnain Onn, Employer Provision Fund

Private medical insurance in Asia faces compounding pressure: rising non-communicable disease (NCD) prevalence, escalating claims, and a persistent gap between benefit spend and health outcomes. Yet the most powerful lever for cost reduction remains largely untapped: Mental Health.

This session presents the evidence that psychological and physical health risk pools are not separate. They are deeply intertwined, and pricing them in isolation produces systematically suboptimal outcomes for insurers and the populations they serve.

Drawing on data from over 370,000 national health screenings (SEHATi by PERKESO), ThoughtFull's Organisational Mental Wellness Assessment results published in a Workplace Wellness 2025 Year-In-Review Whitepaper, and global actuarial and clinical research, this session will demonstrate that:

• The DASS–NCD correlation is irrefutable: employees with elevated depression, anxiety, and stress scores carry materially higher NCD risk profiles
• Burnout is already embedded in the workforce: 23.4% of Malaysian employees show moderate-to-high burnout; 60.7% report low psychological safety
• Mental health intervention delivers measurable ROI: the WHO estimates a 4:1 return, while poor mental health already costs Malaysian organisations RM14.46 billion annually
• AI-powered delivery is making mental health scalable, insurable, and actuarially measurable for the first time

Delegates will leave with a practical framework for integrating mental health risk into product design, underwriting, and employer benefit structures.

Speakers: Joan Low and Chloe Mok, ThoughtFull World 

As automation accelerates, governance cannot remain theoretical. It must operate in the real constraints of delivery pressure, legacy architecture, and imperfect information.

Strong governance does more than satisfy regulators. It strengthens decision confidence, protects organisational credibility, and enables innovation to move at speed without eroding trust. This session aims to empower actuaries and risk professionals with pragmatic approaches to strengthen oversight immediately, even when the model itself cannot be rebuilt.

Besides, models rarely fail loudly. They drift quietly, accumulating complexity as ownership diffuses, documentation ages, and delivery deadlines compress the time available to challenge assumptions. Many actuarial teams inherit models that are business-critical yet only partially understood, even as expectations rise to automate processes and embed AI into decision frameworks.

This session will aim to tackle a reality rarely acknowledged in formal guidance: the models that matter most are often those least suited to textbook governance. They are inherited, partially opaque, heavily relied upon, and deeply embedded in financial decisions. Rebuilding them is rarely feasible. Ignoring their risk is no longer acceptable.

Speaker: Anjali Kuperan,  AIA Group 

Life insurers have become increasingly good at predicting which customers are likely to lapse. Yet many lapse models stop at the moment they become most commercially useful. They identify risk, but often do not provide a structured or differentiated approach to changing customer behaviour based on the output. The insurer’s business goal is not simply to predict lapse more accurately, but to actively reduce it.

This case study explores what happens when actuaries stay involved after the score is produced, using analytics as a foundation for customer-centric design. Drawing on retention work with Australian and US life insurers and live expansion into Asia and China, the session presents a practical framework tested through real CX campaign design and deployment.

We will show how lapse propensity scores and incorporating behavioural data, from policy and transaction records to portal and call centre activity, can inform differentiated customer journeys and message design. The focus shifts toward identifying “changeable lapse risk” and designing interventions that recognise different customer motivations, distribution contexts and moments of vulnerability.

Using career stories from two Swiss Re actuaries in Australia, and job rotations for colleagues in China, the presentation introduces the behavioural actuary, combining predictive modelling, commercial judgement, data interpretation and behavioural economics to design, test and improve customer interventions. Practical examples will cover customer renewal and cross-sell materials, call centre training, and payment journeys, all connected to analytics, with lessons on what works, what does not, and what needs adapting across markets.

Speakers: Nick Mingo, Taleitha Phillips, and Lily Li, Swiss Re Asia

This presentation introduces an innovative AI-based approach: GMM (General model of models), to improve scalability and efficiency in actuarial and quantitative modelling, addressing the long-standing trade-off between spreadsheet flexibility and system performance.

Traditionally, Excel provides transparency and adaptability but becomes inefficient for complex, data-intensive models. Professional actuarial systems offer speed and standardisation but are often rigid and opaque. The proposed solution treats Excel files as prompts rather than execution engines.

An AI system, trained over three years on billions of tokens and over 500 Excel functions, parses spreadsheet formulas into a structured computational graph.

This graph generates optimised C++ code, eliminating redundancies while preserving original logic.

A case study at a listed insurance company demonstrated nearly 100x performance improvement. The system also delivered strong adaptability across regions, enhanced governance through version control and workflow management, and maintained full transparency—all calculations remain traceable.

The future roadmap includes supporting Excel LAMBDA functions, developing a lightweight Excel add-in, and offering a Python package for multi-model integration. The goal is not to replace existing tools but to augment them with AI—allowing actuaries to work in familiar environments with greater efficiency, scalability, and robustness.

Speaker: Collin Qian, DeepLight Tech

The blanket mental health exclusion is near-universal across Asian travel insurance products, yet rarely revisited as a deliberate actuarial decision. The IFoA Mental Health Working Party’s Travel Insurance Work Stream has been examining whether this exclusion reflects evidence or inherited convention, and what a viable path to informed inclusion looks like for Asian markets specifically.

This session presents the Working Party’s framework — From Exclusion to Informed Inclusion — alongside emerging findings from a regional actuarial survey covering Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, and other Asia-Pacific markets. Three structural issues are systematically understated by the current model: claims leakage, where mental health events are absorbed into medical and evacuation categories without being coded as such; a disclosure gap driven more by product design than stigma alone; and reinsurance treaty wording that creates coverage gaps where parity mandates begin to bite, including India’s Galdan Wanchuk judgment (2025) and US precedent under Connecticut §38a-398a.

The proposed framework introduces a five-tier stability-based segmentation, destination severity modifiers consistent with existing medical pricing logic, sublimit structures under a managed parity model, and a behavioural “transparency credit” that prices the value of disclosure rather than penalising it. Each component is calibrated against both the evidence base and the operational realities of Asian primary and reinsurance markets.

The session is targeted at pricing, product, underwriting, and reinsurance practitioners. Attendees will leave with a defensible diagnostic for their own portfolios and a concrete pathway to product evolution where the blanket exclusion no longer holds.

Speaker: Ankit Nanda, Optum India

Speakers: TBC