IFoA Life Conference

Speaker: Zubair Arshed

Government support underpins valuations and ratings on illiquid assets in different sectors. However, what happens when fiscal pressure erodes that support?

In a time when insurers are increasingly investing in private credits and leveraging their gilts exposure to enhance returns, this session will examine how the UK’s tightening fiscal position could expose investors to valuation impacts and positions that exceed the intended risk appetite. Specifically, we will explore:

• UK fiscal outlook: Persistent deficits and rising debt levels mean even a modest shock could trigger material public spending cuts
• Sector impacts: How spending cuts threaten government backing in different sectors, such as social housing and renewables, and how these impact valuations, liquidity, and returns on credit assets
• Real-world case studies: Real world examples to illustrate impact to investors from changing government support in the past
• Insurer implications: What this means for insurers and their credit risk limits, stress testing, and risk appetite.

This presentation will be done with an industry presenter to bring practical insights.

Speakers: 

Anthony Chow, KPMG
Clarence Er, We are Just

Poor metabolic health is underpinned by insulin resistance and remains a significant yet often under-recognised driver of risk in Life and Health insurance. 

It plays a central role in the onset and severity of a wide range of non-communicable diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and multiple cancers. Influenced by lifestyle, environmental and genetic factors, metabolic health has a direct impact on morbidity, mortality and long-term insurance outcomes.

Recent years have seen rapid growth in the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists, particularly semaglutide and tirzepatide. Clinical trials demonstrate significant short-term reductions in BMI and improvements in key cardiometabolic markers, including blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol levels among others.

The NHS has recently recommended semaglutide for patients with elevated cardiovascular risk, though access remains governed by strict eligibility criteria. Meanwhile, UK private prescription volumes have increased sharply. In time, new daily tablets will likely expand access and reshape treatment pathways.
Yet important questions remain. 

The long-term sustainability of weight loss and broader health outcomes are still being studied. Uncertainty also persists around treatment duration, adherence, discontinuation effects and real-world usage. From an insurance perspective, GLP-1 drugs represent both opportunity and risk, with impacts dependent on uptake, persistence, and access, all of which introduce challenge actuarial assumptions and forecasting. 

In this session, we explore:

• Recent evidence and emerging developments, including oral GLP-1 therapies
• NHS policy, access trends, and real-world adoption
• Scenario-based modelling of future mortality and morbidity impacts
• Implications for underwriting, pricing, and long-term risk management.

Speakers: 

Adam Strange, Swiss Re
Prachi Patkee, Swiss Re

Scottish Friendly and Grant Thornton recently partnered on a pilot exploring whether generative AI can reliably convert a complex, spreadsheet based actuarial model into a fully functioning Python application.

This session shares practical lessons from that work, covering not only the technical workflow, but also the organisational, governance and model risk implications of introducing AI into actuarial modelling environments.

We begin with a short live demonstration showcasing an AI driven spreadsheet to Python conversion workflow. The session then presents findings from two complementary industry perspectives:

• Scottish Friendly as the end user, focusing on AI readiness and the practical considerations of incorporating open source models into existing environments, such as meeting internal governance standards and addressing model risk and audit readiness considerations. 
• Grant Thornton’s modelling team, focusing on prompt engineering techniques, iterative refinement, and methods for identifying and mitigating hallucinations and inconsistencies. We also discuss practical considerations for undertaking AI enabled development in a way that supports useful experimentation while maintaining appropriate controls and managing model risk.

The session concludes with reflections on where the workflow performed well and where challenges emerged, such as stochastic responses, edge case logic failures, and inconsistencies across iterative AI runs. We finish by setting out principles for ensuring AI generated models remain auditable, testable, and easy for teams to adopt, including unit testing strategies, baselining approaches, and control frameworks aligned to emerging industry expectations around governance and professional judgement.

Speakers: 

Scott McNeil, Scottish Widdows
Charlotte Midfor, Grant Thornton
Aniketh Pittea, Grant Thornton

Speakers: 

Varun Sood, Aon
Jeff Scholey, Canada Life

This session explores the role actuaries play within internal audit. While internal audit is sometimes perceived as retrospective or “policing” in nature, this presentation will challenge that view and demonstrate how actuarial skills are increasingly central to a modern, insight-led audit function.

Using non-confidential examples, the session will illustrate how actuarial expertise adds value in areas characterised by judgement, uncertainty and complexity. It will highlight the growing use of data analytics and emerging applications of AI within  internal audit, showing how actuarial capability supports forward-looking assurance, strengthens risk insight, and enhances decision-making at senior management and board level, while maintaining audit independence.

Attendees will gain insight into the breadth of organisational exposure audit roles provide, access to senior leadership and boards, and the opportunity to both assure and constructively influence outcomes in strategically important areas.

The session will be delivered in collaboration with the Internal Audit Actuarial Network (IAAN), with contributions from actuarial practitioners working across the life industry. The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (CIIA) will provide the wider internal audit profession’s perspective, positioning actuarial skills within the broader audit capability framework and reinforcing priorities around modernising audit, diversifying skillsets, and building sustainable internal audit capability.

Attendees will get a practical understanding of internal audit and why it represents a credible and rewarding career path for actuaries seeking to broaden their professional impact.

Speakers: 

Eleanor Jeffrey, Royal London
Rory Linwood, Lloyd's Banking Group

As interest rates and capital requirements continue to reshape the UK life market, mass lapse reinsurance has emerged as a powerful and increasingly relevant solvency optimisation tool. Under Solvency UK, lapse risk is a major driver of the Solvency Capital Requirement for insurers writing savings and traditional protection business, and remains highly sensitive to changes in the economic environment.

This session draws on recent live transactions to offer a practical, deal-level perspective on mass lapse reinsurance. The presenters will share hands on experience from both an insurer and reinsurer viewpoint, covering lapse experience analysis, due diligence, structuring choices, treaty drafting and regulatory engagement. Particular focus will be given to recent successful transactions completed between SCOR and OneFamily. 

The session will also tackle a key strategic question facing many boards and executive teams today: when does mass lapse reinsurance offer a more effective solution than subordinated debt? By comparing cost, capital impact, flexibility and longer term balance sheet implications, the discussion aims to equip insurers with practical insights to support informed solvency and capital management decisions.

Speakers: 

Alexandre Tzenev, SCOR
Damian Wong, One Family

The IFoA Social Care Working Party has moved from describing the funding challenge to testing solutions, modelling the cost of care, and engaging directly with stakeholders and policymakers. 

Building on our 2025 Life conference updates, we will share what we have learned about how people really want to plan for care and retirement, and what this implies for insurers, pension providers and the state.

The session will draw on a pilot multistate model of social care transition and costs, alongside our 2026 policy analysis developed with stakeholders and policymakers. We will also reflect on emerging themes from the Casey Commission, and a Scottish case study with Alzheimer’s Scotland.

Attendees will leave with three takeaways:

• How to translate social care modelling into products that resonate with consumers
• How actuarial insight can shape realistic, politically aware reform options
• How life and health actuaries can collaborate and engage with stakeholders and policymakers to close the social care “action gap”.

Working party members will deliver this session, followed by an interactive discussion using live polling to test delegates’ views on product design, risk sharing and the profession’s role in the next phase of social care reform. 

Speakers: 

Vince Bodnar, GAD
Ian Rogers, The Plateau Group
Joan Nakato, University of Warwick
Abigail Takyi, University of Warwick

During 2026, solvent exit planning has shifted from a theoretical exercise to a practical regulatory and board level requirement. Drawing on insights from the IFoA Solvent Exit Planning Task and Finish Group, this panel discussion will cut through theory to explore how firms are actually approaching solvent exit analysis: what is working well, where firms are struggling, and how modelling approaches are evolving in response to PRA expectations.

The discussion will focus on:

• Practical lessons learned from across the market
• What the current wave of practices tells us about where regulatory and market expectations are heading
• Where solvent exit analysis has delivered unexpected strategic value beyond compliance
• The key gaps that continue to challenge firms.

This will be delivered on behalf of the IFoA working group.

Speakers: 

Rachel Chew, KPMG
Alex Chingwalu, The Exeter
Matt McLeod, KPMG
Subbu Veluswamy, Broadstone

This presentation brings together key themes from Broadstone’s market leading report on Mutuality: supporting health and wellbeing in the UK, the Government commissioned Keep Britain Working Review, and the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study.

The UK faces a converging set of challenges: rising levels of ill health-related economic inactivity, growing pressure on public services, and persistent gaps in financial protection. Drawing together insights from these reports, we explore how prevention, protection and shared responsibility can reinforce one another to improve outcomes for individuals, employers and the wider economy.

A consistent narrative runs across all three reports: work, health and financial resilience are deeply interconnected, yet current systems remain fragmented. Mutual and not for profit providers demonstrably reduce strain on the NHS and welfare state through early intervention, rehabilitation and income protection, while the Keep Britain Working Review calls for a fundamental shift towards employer led prevention and inclusive “healthy working lifecycles”. 

At the same time, the FCA highlights both the strengths of the pure protection market and the scale of unmet need, with many consumers underprotected despite broadly effective products and distribution.

Taken together, these findings point to an opportunity to better align workplace health strategies, protection products and regulatory frameworks. This presentation considers how the mutual sector is uniquely placed to contribute to help close protection gaps, keep people healthier and economically active for longer, and deliver sustainable value across the system.

Speakers: 

Mel Hodges,  Broadstone
Ianthe Edgeley, Broadstone

A fireside chat with David Otudeko about his book 'DEI and Me: What Grinds My Gears: From Frustration to Function'.

Over recent years, mortality has continued to improve for UK pensioners, but has worsened for working age adults: a worrying pattern also seen in several comparable countries. This session looks beyond the headlines to examine how causes of death are changing and what this means for life insurers and reinsurers.

Matt Fletcher (Demographic Horizons, Aon) will examine all cause mortality and population experience data, exploring what aggregate trends do and do not reveal about working age mortality. He will focus on data reliability and interpretation, including the impact of using date of occurrence versus registration and the limitations of population estimates at different working ages. 

Drawing on recent working party work and published data, he will place the latest experience in context and highlight where common assumptions may now be inappropriate.

Ashley Campbell (Crystallise) will explore the underlying drivers of these trends through a cause of death lens. He will identify which causes contribute most to recent mortality changes, how lifestyle and other risk factors shape these patterns, how they may evolve, and how working age mortality compares across countries.

By the end of the session, life insurance actuaries will have:

• A clearer understanding of recent mortality developments for working age adults
• Insight into the most important causes of death and risk factors for current and future experience
• A better appreciation of data uncertainties and their implications for pricing, valuation and capital
• Practical questions and considerations for assumption setting and risk management.

Speakers: 

Matt Fletcher, Aon
Ashley Campbell, Crystallise

Life insurers across the UK face a growing challenge: large, longstanding books containing multiple legacy product variants, complex contractual terms and fragmented documentation. These structures create operational inefficiencies, hinder customer understanding, and make simplification initiatives difficult to evidence under Consumer Duty.

This session presents a practical case study from a collaboration between Lloyds Banking Group and PwC, exploring how generative AI can accelerate product simplification analysis while maintaining regulatory rigour.

We will describe how a six-week proof of concept transformed over 1,200 unstructured product documents into a structured, queriable knowledge base using AI-powered extraction and analysis. This enabled the comparison of more than 100 product features across legacy protection products and supported early-stage simplification hypotheses.

The presentation will then outline a structured approach to simplification and regulatory engagement, including feature comparison, contractual analysis, customer outcome assessment and treatment pathway design. We will illustrate how technology can support these steps while maintaining strong governance and validation processes.

Finally, we will discuss the practical considerations for engaging with regulators where precedent is limited, and how insurers can demonstrate good customer outcomes while reducing product complexity.

Key takeaways:

• A practical framework for simplifying longstanding protection products
• How generative AI can unlock insight from legacy documentation safely
• Approaches to demonstrating good customer outcomes and supporting regulatory engagement
• Lessons learned from a realworld industry proof of concept.

Speakers: 

Ian Hazel, LBG
Giada Milocco, PwC

How do I know if my sustainability report is any good? 

Sustainability reporting requirements for life insurers are expanding rapidly, driven by evolving regulatory frameworks, investor scrutiny, stakeholder expectations and regional fragmentation. Compared to traditional financial reports, sustainability reporting is characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, and life insurers face a balancing act between greenwashing and greenhushing, whilst ensuring they meet international frameworks and convey their intended messages. 

From climate risk disclosures to broader ESG metrics, actuarial teams are increasingly expected to support reporting and disclosure, using their skillset to interpret, quantify and communicate sustainability information across multiple overlapping standards. The result can feel less like strategic analysis and more like a compliance burden.

The Sustainability Reporting & Disclosure Working Party has spent the past year rationalising the leading global frameworks into a comprehensive database, overlaid with LLM-enabled analytics designed specifically to ease this reporting burden and improve sustainability reporting. This session will demonstrate how LLMs can augment actuarial judgement by automating the heavy lifting of reviewing documentation and frameworks, surfacing insights from unstructured data and enhancing reporting processes. We will showcase real-world use cases by comparing published sustainability reports against global frameworks. 

Attendees will leave with:

• A clearer understanding of the evolving sustainability reporting landscape for insurers
• Practical insight into how data analytics can reduce reporting complexity and operational burden
• An appreciation for how enhanced reporting can create strategic value, not just regulatory compliance.

Speakers: 

Lloyd Richards, Crowe UK LLP; 
Ella Reid-Norr, Fair4All Finance

AI adoption within actuarial work remains uneven, but its impact is most pronounced among students early in their careers. For students working in industry, AI significantly accelerates productivity: tasks that once required building analysis from first principles can now be produced quickly with AI support. 

Alongside these benefits, students are experiencing a growing gap between producing outputs and developing the technical understanding, validation skills and professional judgement expected of actuaries. 

This industry focused, student led session brings together a panel of actuarial students and senior actuaries to compare how AI is being used across generations in life insurance. The session examines practical, day to day adoption: how students and experienced actuaries use AI in coding, modelling, report writing, summarising meetings, research, audit support and exam preparation; and how these practices differ in intent, control, and accountability.
 
Using concrete examples from everyday work, the panel will explore:

• How AI is being used in practise, and where it measurably improves productivity and learning
• Where reliance on AI can weaken first principles understanding, explainability and confidence in outputs if not properly governed
• What this means for reviewers and senior actuaries, including changes to review depth, evidence expectations, ethical considerations and professional accountability.

The session aims to provide practical insight into how AI is reshaping actuarial capability today, highlighting both opportunity and risk. It considers how these changes interact with emerging regulatory and professional expectations around AI use, particularly within PRA/FCA regulated firms, and the implications for developing and supervising future actuarial talent.

Speakers: 

Jodie Diamond, Grant Thornton

Mental health is an increasingly important driver of claims and claim duration in Disability Income/Income Protection (DI/IP) insurance, with material implications for portfolio performance and pricing assumptions. 

Mental health conditions are becoming more visible, more frequently disclosed and complex in their presentation across populations.

There is a clear generational effect at play. Younger cohorts exhibit higher prevalence, earlier onset and greater duration of mental health conditions compared to previous generations. They are more likely to seek help, receive diagnoses and disclose to insurers – signs of increased literacy and wider societal acceptance. 

From a claims perspective, mental health conditions are a leading cause of absence from work across many markets, with evidence suggesting longer durations and increasing claims complexity. However, the extent to which this reflects a true increase in incidence, evolving clinical presentation or changes in disclosure remains unclear.

Regardless, insurers are beginning to consider more modernised underwriting frameworks that incorporate more nuanced, evidence-based evaluation of mental health risk. They include the increasing likelihood that more applicants may report some history of poor mental health, allowing insurers to expand access a wider applicant pool.

This raises important questions: are current underwriting approaches capturing the true risk? How should insurers adapt to a world where mental health is both more prevalent and more openly disclosed?

In this session, we explore:

• Trends in mental health DI claims incidence, duration, and complexity
• Evolving underwriting approaches for more mental health-engaged applicants
• Implications for pricing, product design and long-term portfolio management.

Speakers: 

Adam Strange, Swiss Re
Debbie Smith, Swiss Re

This session draws on insights from the IFoA Insurtech in Chronic Disease Management Working Party to explore how digital health and Insurtech are reshaping chronic disease management, creating opportunities for earlier intervention and more proactive care.
 
Using examples from the UK and internationally, the panel will discuss how emerging technologies are influencing the insurance value chain and how different healthcare, regulatory and data ecosystems shape their adoption and impact. It will also explore the evidence needed to assess their impact and consider implications such as information asymmetry, anti-selection and affordability.
 
Key takeaways:

• How technology is reshaping chronic disease management
• Why context shapes adoption and value
• What actuaries should consider as technology becomes more embedded.

Speakers: 

Serena Soong, Independent speaker
Cillian Tierney, Partner Re
Yasmine Toussaint, Legal & General
Lisa Balboa, Willis Towers Watson

In the last two years, M&G has launched three innovative products in the annuity and with-profits markets; Value Share, the Prudential Guaranteed Income Plan (a with-profits fixed term annuity) and Bulk Purchase Annuity Plus (a with-profits BPA). 

Join M&Gs senior team and Milliman as they set out their perspectives on developing and launching innovative propositions, using the BPA Plus product as a case study. 

Alistair McColl (Head of With-Profits Management) will discuss how fairness across with-profits customers was considered. Mark Speight (Head of BPA Pricing) will discuss the complexities around how to price a product that is new to the market and shares risks between the shareholder and with-profits funds. 

Chris Anderson (Head of Finance Business Development) will discuss how M&G ensured capital efficiency, and that finance systems and processes were ready to support this innovation. And John Jenkins (Principal, Milliman) will provide a wider market perspective on product innovation to place M&G’s recent work in context.

Speakers: 

Chris Anderson, M&G
Mark Speight, M&G
Alistair McColl, M&G
John Jenkins, Milliman

Private capital’s growing involvement in the UK life insurance market is reshaping insurers’ business models, investment strategies and governance arrangements. 

Recent UK transactions and partnerships highlight a broader trend: closer convergence between life insurers and private capital providers, not only through ownership changes, but also via asset origination, investment management mandates, reinsurance, and specialist operating capabilities.
 
The focus is not whether private capital involvement is inherently good or bad, but how it reshapes the insurance business model. The session talks about the rapidly evolving insurance environment affecting risks, governance, transparency and professional judgement.

Speakers: 

Dipesh Gupta, Standard Life
Ankit Baweja, Standard Life

2024 saw the emergence of new investment strategies on BPA deals, as market pressures and international geopolitical events caused UK gilt swap spreads to widen and investment-grade corporate bond spreads narrow. 

The resulting gilt-heavy ‘capital-lite’ pricing has helped turbo charge BPA insurers to continue to write competitive transactions with attractive returns, delivering sustained record-breaking activity in the pension risk transfer market. 

However, is this inversion of pricing in financial markets transient or representative of a new norm in a less certain world? What are the implications for how insurers will look to invest BPA premiums, and how might those interact with the wider macroeconomic environment? 

Join James and Owen as they explore the structural drivers behind the scenes in financial markets, how this has benefited BPA insurers and the pension schemes looking to de-risk, and consider what the future may bring. 

Speakers: 

Owen Griffiths, Deloitte
James Gillespie, Just Group

This session will help actuaries interpret the impact of the NHS 10-year plan on mortality and longevity through a practical, evidence-informed framework, bringing together expertise in population health, health economics, and actuarial modelling.
 
The NHS is a core determinant of health, yet translating reform into actuarial assumptions remains challenging. The plan sets out ambitious goals across prevention, care delivery, workforce, and digital transformation, but impacts on mortality are uncertain, uneven, and time-dependent.
 
This session introduces a structured approach to assessing impact across three dimensions: timing, population, and mechanism. From a health economics perspective, we show how shifts in the plan can be tracked using core NHS activity and outcome indicators across primary and secondary care, including access, avoidable admissions, and outcomes; and how these can act as leading signals for mortality.

We explore progress and barriers in key data and digital programmes, including the NHS App and Federated Data Platform, and how these enable population health management approaches such as segmentation, risk stratification, and early intervention. We illustrate how variation in digital and data maturity across geographies can signal changing risk profiles.
 
From a population health and actuarial perspective, we translate these signals into implications for mortality, using examples such as winter mortality, access to care, and socioeconomic variation, and show how they can inform more robust longevity modelling and scenario design under uncertainty.
 
Key takeaways: Attendees will understand how the NHS 10-year plan’s ambitions translate into measurable changes in health outcomes and mortality, and what this means for longevity.

Speakers: 

Nicky Draper, Crystallise

In the life insurance market, successful integration and successful finance transformation is rarely decided in the business case projections. It is decided after day one, when systems, governance and culture collide, and leaders must deliver through ambiguity. 

This session explores what it really takes to embed change for good: the brain to design it, the heart to carry people through it, and the courage to lead when trade offs are unavoidable.
 
Using a forensic post mortem format, the panel session examines the themes of significant delivery challenges across major integrations and finance transformations. The causes are familiar to boards and exec sponsors: misaligned programmes, governance drift, unresolved data and process dependencies, slow decisions and stakeholder conflict. Whether integrating companies or delivering large scale finance change, the patterns are strikingly similar.
 
The session balances science and leadership judgement. It covers the hard mechanics of control: governance design, stakeholder mapping, system and data interdependencies, delivery artefacts and early warning signals. It then addresses the softer, decisive moments leaders face: narrative framing, power dynamics, cultural tension, trust repair and personal credibility. These factors determine whether robust designs are followed, diluted or abandoned.
 
Participants act as a finance transformation steering committee, responding to evidence prompts that mirror real warning signs. Panel reflections share candid leadership missteps and lessons, without sensitive detail.
 
Attendees leave with: a practical checklist of early transformation surprises, stakeholder tactics when incentives clash and time is scarce, and clear red flag signals, plus interventions that stabilise delivery without exhausting teams.

Speakers: 

Hana Drake, 4most
Matthew Smith, Standard Life
Rebecca Sardar, Aviva
Rob Goodwin, Chesnara
Devanshu Agarwal, Prudential

Health and protection insurers are investing heavily in behavioural interventions – deposit contracts, default-enrolment nudges, digital coaching – yet pricing actuaries lack a standardised, defensible method to translate this evidence into claims adjustments. Prevention spend remains a pure cost centre, and models continue to assume static policyholder behaviour. 

This session directly addresses the industry’s simplification imperative by making behavioural science actionable inside existing pricing, reserving, and capital workflows.

We introduce the Behavioural Adjustment Factor (BAF), a multiplicative framework given by BAF = 1 − R × E × C × D. It quantifies expected claims impact across four auditable dimensions: reach (participation), efficacy (clinical effect size), claims translation (health-to-financial mapping), and decay (persistence over time). 

Each parameter is modelled as a bounded beta distribution and simulated via Monte Carlo methods, delivering median and percentile outputs ready for pricing, reserving, and Solvency II applications.

Key takeaways include a reproducible tool that sits cleanly within Solvency II’s health underwriting risk module (premium and reserve risk sub-modules), meets PRA evidential standards, and explicitly addresses equity implications across demographic cohorts – an emerging governance priority for both the PRA and FCA. Practical examples will cover PMI, critical illness, and income protection portfolios.

Background: The framework was awarded first place at the IFoA Health and Care Big Pitch 2026 at Staple Inn and is currently under peer review for publication in the British Actuarial Journal.

Speakers: 

Ankit Nanda, Optum Global Solutions

Speakers: 

Naomi Venables, Milliman
Louie Moreno    
Claire Bridges    

Longer lives, stronger funding levels and a sustained £40-50bn-a-year BPA market mean we are at a watershed moment for defined benefit endgame, with around £500bn of derisking expected over the next 15 years. This session will explore how insurers can turn that volume into sustainable promises for members over the next 30 to 40 years, not just competitive pricing on day one.
 
Drawing on Canada Life’s Life100+ research – based on over 3,200 UK adults and 600 employers – we will connect the longevity megatrend with practical realities of BPA: expanding operational capacity (particularly around data and administration), balancing regulation with innovation, and deploying capital in a way that supports long term stability. 

We will also show why “member experience” is fast becoming a core differentiator, and what good looks like when schemes hand over not only risk, but also their duty of care, including access to broader health and wellbeing support across a much longer retirement journey.
 
Attendees will leave with a clear view of how longer, more non linear working lives, with later retirements, phased transitions and more complex health and financial needs, are reshaping what members need from schemes and insurers, and what that implies for endgame design and advice. 

They will also gain insight into how BPA providers can partner with trustees, advisers and administrators to improve data, technology and post buy out service, including the role of holistic support, such as health and wellbeing services, that reflects Life100+’s focus on financial, physical and emotional resilience.

Speakers: 

Shreyas Sridhar, Canada Life
Katie Sokolow     

The Matching Adjustment Asset and Liability Information Return (MALIR) is a central source of regulatory data on life insurers’ matching adjustment portfolios. Drawing on recent MALIR submissions, this presentation explores key market wide trends and insights emerging from the data, with a particular focus on how MA portfolios have evolved in response to changing market conditions, trends in the bulk buyout market, and firms’ strategic choices.
 
The session will examine key trends in portfolio growth, asset composition, credit quality, MA benefit and term structure of MA portfolios, alongside developments in cash flow matching. It will discuss how these patterns can be interpreted in the context of capital efficiency, investment strategy, and risk management.
 
Overall, the session aims to provide actuaries with a concise but insightful overview of what MALIR data is telling us about the UK annuity market and why these insights matter.

Speakers: 

Shamir Patel, PRA
Jemima Ayton, PRA

LV= is modernising its complex legacy with-profits business to deliver better customer outcomes in a Consumer Duty environment, while simplifying operations and reducing risk.
 
We have already transitioned various product lines, including a historical IB policy book, from sample policy-based payouts to individual asset share-based payouts, with remaining products expected to convert by year-end. This shift enables automated payouts, removing the need for traditional bonus declarations and allowing the with-profits committee (WPC) and with-profits actuary (WPA) to focus on key areas of discretion.
 
The new approach enhances transparency and understanding of payout changes for both customers and the firm via intuitive management information (MI), supporting better-informed decision-making in the interests of customers.
 
This session will offer practical insights for actuaries and practitioners seeking to modernise complex with-profits operations while balancing fairness, customer outcomes, and governance. It will cover:

• Limitations of traditional sample policy-based payout methodologies
• Approaches to ensuring fairness when resetting individual asset shares
• Customer communication strategies, including handling payout changes and vulnerable customers
• Retaining key features such as expense and mortality cross-subsidies, and historical death benefits
• Incorporating smoothing and guarantees 
• Clarifying areas of discretion for WPC/WPA oversight
• Designing effective MI, including overall returns and links to fair value assessments
• Governance and oversight involving WPA, WPC, Board, and regulators
• Reducing operational complexity, including removal of manual processes and managing incomplete data
• Delivering efficiency gains through technology and reducing risk 
• Enabling future opportunities, including fund mergers and broader product rationalisation.

Speakers: 

Roland Horton, LV
Catherine Gavin, LV
Trevor Fannin, WTW

This paper proposes the agentic model office as a technology blueprint for insurance organisations aiming to become software legible and increasingly automated. Our central thesis is that current estates constrain agent performance not because models lack reasoning ability, but because the operating fabric is opaque, fragmented, and reliant on tacit human knowledge. 

Meaningful progress requires a deliberate redesign of the computational substrate on which agents act, yielding a machine-readable mirror of the insurer that supports transparent, tool-driven execution.
 
The architecture rests on two layers. The digital model office provides modular, API-accessible representations of data, models, rules, and workflows, coupled with provenance and programmatic integration. The agentic layer comprises planner and worker agents with memory, tool use, and adaptive control, coordinating multi-step tasks across heterogeneous systems. 

Together they form a portable operating system for insurance, where intent is expressed in natural language, execution is orchestrated by agents, and the entire lifecycle is inspectable.
 
We outline a path from legacy estates to agent-ready infrastructure, grounded in software engineering principles: API-first integration, infrastructure as code, and continuous integration and deployment. Adopting these practices makes processes programmatically accessible, precisely what agents need to operate effectively.
 
This session pairs theory with a live demonstration. Using MCP tools, agent skills, and multi-agent frameworks, we show AI agents performing economically valuable actuarial work across pricing, reserving, and model governance.

Speakers: 

Daniel Ramsay, Deloitte
Ben Dennesen, Deloitte
Betty Zhu, Solux Tech

Auto enrolment has been a clear success, bringing millions into pension saving with minimal friction. Yet for most savers, what follows accumulation remains poorly defined. As large cohorts approach retirement, people are being asked to make high stakes, largely non advised decisions in the absence of any widely accepted, mass market approach to delivering sustainable income. If the outcomes that follow auto enrolment are unclear, volatile or uneven, trust in the system itself risks being undermined.
 
Collective defined contribution (CDC) shows how sharing longevity risk can materially improve outcomes, and emerging policy suggests such approaches may play a role through guided retirement in trustee based schemes. However, this raises urgent questions about accessibility, consolidation, and how similar outcome benefits might be delivered more widely, including within FCA regulated arrangements. There is currently no settled answer, and in that vacuum, product design choices made now will shape outcomes for a generation.
 
This session focuses on the product design challenge rather than policy prediction. Using CDC as a reference point, it explores how longevity risk sharing might be delivered with different balances of investment risk, flexibility and governance, while remaining as intuitive as opening a bank account or choosing a mortgage. Delivered in an interactive format, the session invites participants to test ideas, challenge assumptions and contribute to defining what “good” looks like – before the market does it for us.

Speakers: 

Alan Newton, Grant Thornton

At this year’s IFoA Life Conference, the Financial Reporting Group (FRG) of the IFoA will return, joined by a guest speaker from the UK Endorsement Board (UKEB). With Q1 2026 marking both the third year of IFRS 17 reporting and the launch of the UKEB’s post-implementation review, this session will:

• Reflect on what we have learnt from recent IFRS 17 reporting, including perspectives from insurer and investors / analysts
• Provide an update from the UKEB on the objectives and progress of their post-implementation review, scheduled to conclude by 1 January 2028
• Explore upcoming IFRS developments relevant to insurers, including IFRS 18 (effective from 1 January 2027) and the IASB’s exposure draft on Risk Mitigation Accounting. 

Speakers: 

Anthony Coughlan, PwC
Kamran Foroughi, WTW
Seema Jamil-O'Neill, UK Endorsement Board

Most actuaries individually, most companies corporately, and the IFoA itself are starting to appreciate the power of AI. But does the incredible power, speed and cost-efficiency of AI – especially when deployed in automated processes – imply actuarial jobs are at risk?
 
This session looks at the potential magnitude of the ‘jobs pandemic’, and then considers how actuaries need to adopt different skills and mindsets to differentiate themselves from the ‘robo-actuaries’.

The first half, on the job threat, considers what has already happened in various adjacent sectors (technology, banking, accounting, and the legal profession), where many firms have recently announced massive AI-related job cuts. Bespoke legally-trained LLMs can now do 99% of legal discovery and due diligence for law firms – their bread-and-butter work. So what is likely for us, as the power of AI, and acceptance of Agentic AI and automation, keeps moving ahead?
 
The second half considers how this threat requires us to radically rethink how we can differentiate ourselves from AI. Where can our human neural networks out-perform the LLMs’ neural networks?
 
AI operates in an analytical, task-focused mode – incapable of empathy, relational connection, creative forward-thinking or insights. These capacities, rooted in our brains’ Default Mode Networks, are precisely what we must cultivate. The profession's historical emphasis on technical execution has unfortunately trained junior actuaries to compete where AI is strongest. We discuss how to invert this: developing actuaries who lead with judgment, stakeholder empathy, and strategic imagination – the ‘anti-robot’ weapons.

Speakers: 

Matthew Edwards
Michael Tripp

Behavioural science has been recognised for over a decade as a powerful lever for improving insurance outcomes, yet several commercially impactful applications remain underutilised. Drawing on Swiss Re's emerging behavioural research and live implementations, this session highlights areas where behavioural science is delivering measurable insurance value today through practical and evidence-based insights:

1. Loyalty driven onboarding: we demonstrate how behaviourally informed welcome journeys and advisor interactions increase perceived value, trust and understanding, driving higher take-up rates and stronger long-term customer loyalty.
2. Uncovering and addressing disclosure bias: Behavioural science strengthens underwriting and actuarial insights in sensitive risk areas such as smoking, mental health and GLP-1 medication usage. Showcasing new Swiss Re research, we reveal surprising disclosure blind spots and show how underwriting question design can improve the quality and completeness of information capture, with evidence of threefold disclosure uplift.
3. Shaping decisions beyond price: we identify critical customer touchpoints where price appears to dominate decisions but often masks issues of understanding, suitability or missing value. Behavioural interventions addressing these underlying drivers have enabled up to 50% save rates in live call-centre retention settings, delivering direct financial impact.

Takeaways:

• Across actuarial insights, sales, underwriting and retention, behavioural science enables insurers to unlock commercial value
• Behavioural science is an actuarial tool to materially improve disclosure completeness and strengthen the accuracy of pricing and assumptions
• Supporting customer decision-making at critical moments improves outcomes such as product take-up and longer-term product value appreciation

Speakers: 

Grace Burke, Swiss Re
Nick Clifton     

Since 2020, National Friendly has been on a remarkable solvency and strategic transformation journey. Having breached its Solvency Capital Requirement at the onset of the pandemic, the Society faced a stark challenge familiar to actuaries: how to restore resilience while continuing to serve members and support growth. This presentation tells that story, not as a tale of a single fix, but as a case study in how capital, risk management and commercial strategy must work together.
 
We will explore the practical actions taken over the subsequent five years: strengthening risk governance, reshaping the balance sheet, improving asset-liability matching, and using reinsurance more effectively to reduce volatility and protect capital. Alongside these risk reduction measures, National Friendly also pursued disciplined growth, demonstrating that recovery does not have to mean retrenchment. The journey culminated in the successful securing of Tier 2 capital in 2025, marking an important milestone in rebuilding financial flexibility and confidence.
 
For an actuarial audience, this session offers more than a chronology. It highlights the real-world interplay between solvency metrics, management actions, business mix, and stakeholder communication. It will examine what worked, what proved harder than expected, and how actuarial insight informed decision-making at each stage.
 
At a time when many insurers are navigating persistent uncertainty, this presentation offers an honest and engaging account of turning a capital crisis into a platform for sustainable growth. It will be relevant to actuaries interested in capital management, with-profits and mutual business models, and the translation of technical analysis into strategic action.

Speakers: 

Julian Ellacott, National Deposit Friendly
Simon Jeffery     

The mutual sector has long been a cornerstone of the UK’s financial services landscape, offering customers greater choice and providing diversity within the sector. Mutuals can also play a pivotal role in supporting local communities and in financial inclusion. Given the Government’s commitment to grow the mutual and co-operative sector as a whole, this session is a timely opportunity to explore the current state of the mutual landscape in the UK, examining key trends, challenges, and opportunities. 
 
The presentation will cover first hand insights from Nicki Welling (With-Profits Actuary Royal London), Callum Stuart (With-Profits Actuary Scottish Friendly) and Steven Hill (Head of Policy and External Affairs at Royal London, who is also involved in the Mutuals Council). Catherine Thorn (With-Profits Leader at EY) will provide an overview of the mutual sector, including changes within the market and strategic collaborations. 

The discussion will look at how the mutual sector is innovating and adapting to meet changing customer needs. We will also look at what further action could be taken, including consideration of the needs of potentially underserved parts of society, alongside the wider benefits of being part of a mutual.  
 
This session aims to foster a forward-looking dialogue on the future of mutuality in the UK, and provide opportunity for a deeper understanding of the mutual sector’s evolving role. 

Speakers: 

Catherine Thorn, EY
Nicki Welling, Royal London
Callum Stuart, Scottish Friendly
Steven Hill, Royal London

This interactive session will feature an unreleased Professional Skills video exploring attitudes towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Reflective Practice Discussions (RPDs). Through the contrasting experiences of Marty and Calvin, delegates will be invited to consider the ethical, professional and practical implications of how they approach CPD. Together, participants will discuss themes of integrity, competence, communication and compliance, and reflect on how meaningful engagement with CPD can support career development, professional growth and better outcomes for clients and colleagues.

Speakers: 

Ewen Tweedie, Broadstone

This session will present key insights from the Critical Illness (CI) Incidence Rates Working Party, focusing on how industry data and assumptions have evolved before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on analysis of the “big three” CI conditions – cancer, heart attack and stroke – using publicly available datasets, we will explore emerging experience and their implications for actuarial practice.
 
The session will also offer qualitative feedback, including differences observed between individual and group business. It will explore how industry exposure has changed and what this means for interpreting recent experience. The session will also examine approaches to basis derivation, with practices observed in other markets offering a broader international perspective.

A key focus will be on current hot topics, including evolving definitions of CI conditions, changes in claims treatment and the challenges these pose for consistency and comparability of data. We will share relevant working party findings to provide practical context.
 
The session will be structured as a 45-minute presentation followed by a 15-minute interactive Q&A. The presentation will combine data analysis, industry comparisons and practical considerations, while the Q&A will encourage discussion and debate on interpretation and future directions. 

By the end of the session, attendees will have a clearer view of CI data sources, exposure differences across the industry, approaches to basis derivation and emerging considerations around definitions and treatment.

Speakers: 

Members of the Critical Illness Working Party

Chris Reynolds, SiriusPo
Josephine Robertson, J Robertson

London’s health and care landscape has changed materially over the past decade, but those changes sit alongside persistent structural differences between places and populations. This session explores both dimensions: the underlying differences in economics, lifestyle, history, and deprivation that shape health outcomes, and the ways in which those gaps have widened, narrowed, or blurred over time. 

The session will focus on chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity, using London as a case study. The speakers examine how features of the local food environment may be associated with variation in disease prevalence and related inequality in health outcomes. 

In particular, we explore spatial clustering of takeaway shops such as the London Chicken Mile, which illustrates how dense fast-food corridors may relate to patterns of obesity prevalence at neighbourhood level. Spatial analysis of takeaway density and obesity prevalence is used alongside wider evidence on how local communities experience health differently within boroughs and GP catchments. 

The aim is not to infer causality, but to explore how structural and environmental variables jointly describe observed patterns in health outcomes.

The discussion also considers whether observed patterns reflect enduring structural differences, such as affluence and deprivation, or whether they also reflect temporal change, including gentrification, changing lifestyles, and shifts in local populations. The session aims to help actuaries interpret spatial health data more critically when constructing mortality, morbidity, and longevity related assumptions. The session will be delivered in a conversational format with audience discussion.

Speakers: 

Mohamed Elsheemy, Crystallise
Mayukh Gayen     
Harsh Raman 

Solvency II reform last year introduced changes in various areas on the asset side for insurance companies, including LTEI application, VA change, introduction of MAIA permission and spread SCR on securitized products. 

https://www.nb.com/en/gb/insights/article-solvency-ii-four-key-changes-impacting-insurers 

We focus on updated spread charge for securitized products. Given the reduction of spread SCR changes on both STS and non-STS, we believe many insurance companies are starting to look into these asset classes that have historically been off the list.

We will give a brief introduction on CLOs. We want to show how our life insurance company peers in the US are allocating to securitised assets, and what lessons can we learn from there.

Lastly, we have modelled the impact of allocation to securitised products on volatility and spread SCR for typical life insurance companies in the UK.

Speakers: 

Janice Zhong, Neuberger Berman
Ericsson Wong, Neuberger Berman
Anthony Wagstaff-Kent, Neuberger Berman
Oliver Little, Neuberger Berman

Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer in UK men. This session examines how clinical and diagnostic developments are reshaping staging outcomes and, in turn, critical illness (CI) pricing.
 
The session opens with Dr Debbie Smith (Chief Medical Officer EMEA, Swiss Re), who will outline the presentation of prostate cancer along with the Gleason grading system, TNM staging and the recently released UICC 9th edition. She will describe how the widespread adoption of multi parametric MRI has changed diagnostic practice, enabling earlier detection and leading to the upstaging of many cases that would previously have been classified at a lower stage. The updated classification framework formalises the growing influence of imaging findings and increases the number of diagnoses that now meet criteria insurers had historically considered outside the scope of a valid claim.
 
The second half, presented by Chris Jones (Head of CI Pricing, Swiss Re), will explore the implications of these clinical and diagnostic changes for CI pricing, including both base and future trend assumptions. It will also reflect on how any future screening programme could affect incidence patterns and claim frequencies. These developments have significant consequences for CI policy wording and the treatment of early or low grade prostate cancer.
 
Attendees will gain an understanding of the drivers of accelerated upstaging and how evolving staging systems are redefining the boundary between lower  and higher severity disease. They will also learn how these shifts affect CI pricing and the changing balance between partial and full claim outcomes.

Speakers: 

Christopher Jones, Swiss Re
Debbie Smith, Swiss Re

Credit risk is a major driver of capital, solvency volatility and investment returns for life insurers, yet credit models are inconsistent across the market, and can be over-simplistic, developed in silos and rarely challenged outside small specialist teams. In addition, methodology is often still anchored in decades-old theory, which may struggle to reflect the reality of current and future credit markets. For insurers, this can translate into limited model flexibility, uncertainty in pricing, capital planning, ALM decisions and risk governance. The Credit Risk Working Party was formed with the aim of helping the industry raise the bar in this area. In this session, we will share practical insights on what "good" looks like today, highlight common pitfalls we are seeing, and provide early benchmarking from an industry-wide survey on credit modelling.

Speakers: 

Michael Ashcroft, Standard Life
Weihe Qin, WTW

In a profession built on precision, judgement, and responsibility, high performance is trusted and often accelerated. In many actuarial teams, the most capable people become the most relied upon. They deliver. They step in. They solve problems quickly and quietly.
And over time, more work starts to flow through them.

Not because anyone asked them to carry it all.

But because they can.

At first, it looks like high performance. But as with an iceberg, what you see is only a fraction of what’s actually going on.

Above the surface: delivery, responsiveness, reliability.
Below: accumulated decisions, constant context-switching, unspoken expectations, and the quiet pressure of being the one everything comes through.

This session challenges a core assumption in high-performing environments – that the safest hands should hold the most.

Most high performers respond to pressure in the only way they know how:  Push a little harder, stay a little later, carry a little more. But the real shift doesn’t come from pushing. It comes from pausing.

Through the lens of pressure, pause, and possibility, this session explores how leadership and communication change when you stop absorbing expectations and start shaping them. When boundaries create clarity, ownership, and space to think.

Attendees will leave with a practical way to recognise when they’ve become the bottleneck and how to shift their leadership and communication approach to build capacity across their teams.

Because the real risk isn’t that things will fall apart without you.
It’s that they won’t grow because of you.

Speakers: 

Meshali Chotai, Room to Breathe

This session will cover consumer fairness and financial inclusion, drawing heavily on the outcomes of the 2026 IFoA thematic review on this topic.

The IFoA has long championed consumer fairness through its thought leadership, including initiatives such as the Great Risk Transfer campaign. Financial institutions have held responsibilities in this area for many years, most recently reinforced in the UK through the FCA Consumer Duty. While the UK government’s regulatory priorities have evolved, with greater emphasis on competition and growth, the FCA Consumer Duty remains in force, and the actuarial profession’s duty to act in the public interest is unchanged. Across all practice areas and territories, actuaries often need to navigate the balance between commercial considerations with the interests of consumers.

Attendees will gain insights from the review and understand how the IFoA Regulatory Board intends to take actions from the findings.

There will be an opportunity for session attendees to discuss the topic and share their views on how this important theme aligns with the public interest role of actuaries and the IFoA.

The thematic review report will be published in advance of the conference. Additionally, there are a number of examples of relevant IFoA thought leadership materials, such as the Great Risk Transfer campaign, the ‘think’ series, and the Inclusive Insurance bulletin.

Speakers: 

Alan Marshall, IFoA

Advances in AI are transforming actuarial modelling from manual, code-heavy processes to agent-driven, specification-led workflows. This session explores AI actuarial agents that generate end-to-end life insurance models from structured and unstructured inputs. Using case studies from an Asian-based consultancy and an African insurer, we show how agent-based systems translate documents and data into structured actuarial models with minimal human intervention.

Attendees will learn how structured skills and compiler-chain architectures enable models that are near-complete, auditable, and deployable across CPU, GPU, and cloud environments. Real-world results include reducing build times from weeks or days to hours, improving consistency, and enhancing auditability and visibility through automated documentation and traceability.

We will cover agent design, skills, key use cases (new products, rapid prototyping, model transformation), and practical considerations, including cost and workflow integration. Risks are also addressed, including data protection, validation requirements, governance, and maintaining actuarial judgement.

The session includes case-study output and Q&A. Attendees will gain a clear view of where AI agents deliver value today and how to operationalise them safely.

Key takeaways

• Generate production-ready models from unstructured inputs using AI workflows and humans-in-the-loop
• Identify high-value use cases
• Understand skills and agent frameworks
• Evaluate cost vs benefit
• Discuss risks and governance needs.

Speakers: 

Kalani Perera, KPMG Sri Lanka
Frank Dalo, BIHL, Botswana
Harshana Lakmal, KPMG Sri Lanka
Chris Martis, Green 13 Solutions

As UK life insurers reassess their financial planning and analysis (FP&A) frameworks, they are poised to unlock transformative opportunities in their design, architecture, operating models, and delivery. Drawing on lessons from the banking sector, where relatively agile planning processes, integrated EPM architectures, and the use of AI and Python-based modelling are more mature, we will highlight how insurers’ technology and design choices can materially strengthen their insight generation and decision support. 

The session will also showcase Aviva’s recently initiated FP&A transformation, providing an overview of their strategic vision to reimagine these capabilities within an insurance context. 
We will also highlight emerging themes and key insights from the UK life market, including shifts in architecture, operating models, KPI dashboards, and AI use cases.

Together, these perspectives will offer a forward-looking view of how insurers can enhance their FP&A function to support more agile and informed strategic planning.

Speakers: 

Ashik Salecha, KPMG
Jon Mortimore, Aviva
Givarn Ramsundar, KPMG

GLP-1 adoption is the fastest-moving mortality variable the UK annuity market has seen in a generation. Swiss Re estimates a potential cumulative UK mortality reduction of up to 5.1% over 20 years. RGA models a 2% central scenario reduction by 2045. The cohort driving adoption is 50 to 65-year-olds, precisely the demographic sitting inside today's annuity books.

The profession knows this. And it is still updating its assumptions once a year. 
 
This session makes an uncomfortable argument directly: annual review cycles are not a calibration problem or a resourcing problem. They are a structural failure of how the profession has connected its modelling layer to the world that modelling layer is supposed to represent. The data is moving faster than the process.

In a market writing £7 billion of new business annually, the gap between signal and assumption is no longer a theoretical risk. It is a balance sheet exposure accumulating in real time.
 
The session draws on live practitioner experience administering institutional life and pensions books at scale, and emerging applied research on continuous signal ingestion from live policy data and population health datasets. It will name the gap precisely, challenge the audience on what their current review frequency actually protects against, and open a direct conversation about what a continuously monitored actuarial layer requires across technical, commercial, and professional standards dimensions.

Speakers: 

Gayle McDonald-Allan, SS&C

Younger generations in the UK are entering a pensions system that places increasing responsibility on individuals, yet engagement with long term saving remains stubbornly low. This session draws on original research produced by a team of LSE PPE undergraduates, combining survey data, a focus group, and a wide ranging international literature review, to explore why this gap persists, and what it means for the future shape of the UK life and pensions market.

The research highlights a central tension: younger savers consistently express a desire for flexibility and control, but also face cognitive, behavioural, and liquidity barriers that prevent active engagement. By examining international successes and failures, the session shows that outcomes depend as much on trust, communication, and behavioural design as on technical policy choices.

Case studies include:

• The collapse of auto enrolment participation in Poland
• Switzerland’s success using app based behavioural nudges to increase contributions
• Australia’s experience of pensions simplification
• The persistently low take up of Pension Wise, despite demonstrably good outcomes
• Sidecar savings models that reconcile liquidity needs with long term saving.

The session will explore what these lessons imply for the UK as it navigates a DC dominated ecosystem, guided retirement pathways, CDC roll-out, and evolving FCA expectations under Consumer Duty.

Speakers: 

Alan Newton, Grant Thornton
Benedict Aird, LSE
Stanislas Tchaban, LSE

As Sir Mayfield notes in the 2025 Keep Britain Working report, "ill-health has now become one of the biggest drivers of economic inactivity in the UK".  The well-established methods that actuaries employ for understanding and explaining the dynamics of Income Protection business can have useful applications for understanding the health of the workforce.

A specific population health metric that is gaining more attention is healthy working life expectancy (HWLE). This is an estimate of the length of time that a person will be both healthy and working, and can be an indicator of the health and potential productivity of a population. It has been presented as a measure for assessing the appropriateness of increasing retirement ages and for the adequacy of national social security policymaking. It could be a useful benchmark for life and health insurers when developing new life insurance products, such as disability income protection and pensions savings contracts.
 
Furthermore, estimating HWLE from datasets across historic time periods is a useful statistic for measuring the trends in long-term sickness and economic inactivity within the UK national workforce population. Using life insurance data to calculate HWLE represents the first attempt to estimate HWLE for a UK population segment with administrative data, rather than survey results, and therefore is a novel approach.
 
Key takeaways will include methods and results of calculating HWLE for the UK population and discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these methods.

Speakers: 

David Beddows, Swiss Re

Where actuarial risks are shifting: What FRC research reveals about how actuaries are using AI today, and how climate change-related risks are being allowed for in actuarial work

AI tools and climate change considerations are increasingly shaping actuarial practice. As these areas continue to grow in importance, so too does the need to manage the risks they pose to the quality of your actuarial work. If you are keen to understand what the main risks are and how they are being managed, then this session will help to provide the answers.

This presentation will cover:

• How AI is being used in actuarial modelling and analysis
• How actuaries are currently allowing for climate change related risks in their day-to-day work
• Common challenges and examples of emerging good practice across these areas.

Following the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

This is an in person session delivered by actuaries from the Financial Reporting Council. It is suitable for all levels of technical knowledge and should be of interest to any actuary.

Speakers: 

Alice Piper, Financial Reporting Council
Katie Carmona, Financial Reporting Council
Matthew Myring-McCullagh, Financial Reporting Council

Tight credit spreads, competitive new business pricing, the introduction of assets with highly predictable (HP) cash flows, and the arrival of new capital providers into the UK BPA market are all factors driving firms to look at a broader range of investment opportunities.
 
Here, we ask what role structured credit might play in a matching adjustment (MA) portfolio, noting the sort of durations typically observed, the evolution of investment strategies in light of increasingly attractive long-end gilt-swap spreads, and the extent to which new structures can be engineered to meet the needs of annuity providers alongside other investors.

Speakers: 

Andrew Kenyon, NatWest Markets
Lauren Palacios, NatWest Markets

Health and mortality in the 21st century has faced a bumpy ride in the UK, with recent record highs in life expectancy at older ages but record lows in healthy life expectancy at birth. Mei and Jack have been at the forefront of research in medical, policy and socioeconomic drivers of health and mortality outcomes, how they are interconnected with financial and retirement planning, and implications for actuaries. 
 
Our presentation focuses on these interrelated topics: 

• Advances in population health and barriers to health improvement 
• Insights on healthy vs total life expectancy, and the importance of considering both when considering retirement adequacy and supporting policy holders across socio-economic groups
• Recent UK mortality across ages, including international comparisons and analysis by cause of death (using analysis of a new cause of death dataset)
• Implications of people underestimating their own life expectancy, including a poll of the audience’s views on their life expectancy. How can insurers support individuals to plan for their retirement in that context?
• How the State Pension will change as the population ages and fiscal and demographic pressures bite, and how insurance and pensions solutions need to evolve to suit the changing landscape.

Attendees will gain a clear understanding of the key drivers of UK health and mortality trends, why healthy life expectancy matters, and how insurers, pensions, and policy solutions must evolve to help individuals plan for longer and more uncertain retirements.

Speakers: 

Jack Carmichael, Barnett Waddingham; Pacif
Mei Sum Chan, Pacific Life Re

World Economic Forum research shows that women spend around 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, representing an estimated $1 trillion annual economic opportunity by 2040. This is the female health gap. Contrary to common assumptions, only around 5% of this gap relates to maternal and gynaecological conditions. Instead, it reflects structural features of how medical knowledge has been built over time, including male biased clinical trials, limited gender disaggregated data, differences in care delivery, and chronic under investment in female health.

The presentation focuses on three areas:

This session reframes women’s health inequality as a material, systemic risk with direct implications for senior leaders and organisations. It explores how historic gaps in medical knowledge translate into modern business risks that are frequently overlooked and underappreciated.

• Workforce performance, wellbeing and retention, including productivity drag and leadership attrition risk
• Systemic workplace maladaptation
• Implications for insurance underwriting, product design and emerging market opportunities.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of where existing workplace systems may be blind, why this matters for long term organisational performance, and how actuarial thinking can support better informed leadership decisions that create both sustained value and positive social outcomes.

Speakers: 

Adél Drew, 4most

Over one million people in the UK have a funeral plan, helping to alleviate grieving loved ones from the time, stress, and worry that comes from making funeral arrangements.

In 2026, the FCA is releasing their post implementation review of the Funeral Plan Conduct of Business regulation – its first review since being implemented 29 July 2022.  

For the past four years, all funeral plans have been required to demonstrate their financial strength, and their consumers have been protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and Financial Ombudsman Service.

In that time, funeral plans have remained strong financially and popular with consumers, and there has been some merger and acquisition activity, owing at least in part to the overhead costs of the regulation. 

Direct cremation plans have grown in popularity, and future developments may include water cremation plans and expanding the regulation of funeral directors in Scotland to other parts of the UK.

The FCA have been analysing the past four years and have asked the industry for insight into what has gone well and what enhancements, improvements, and clarifications could be made in their experience of the regulatory requirements, particularly since they were put in at quite short notice with only limited data, which can sometimes lead to unforeseen outcomes.

The focus of this session is to review and discuss:

• The developments in the funeral plan sector over the past four years
• The proposed changes to the funeral plan regulation
• What the future holds for the industry.

Speakers: 

Erika Parker, Broadstone
Abi Pattenden, National Association of Funeral Plan Providers (NAFPP)

What are AI agents, how do they work, and most importantly how can actuaries start building them in practice? 

This hands-on session, which completes a series of articles published on the IFoA’s website, will answer those questions through a live demonstration of an automated underwriting AI agent built from scratch.

Tim Hill (AI and Technology Lead, Zenith Actuarial), Srinivasan Iyengar (Senior Analyst, Pacific Life Re) and Dr Alexey Mashechkin (Head of Technical Excellence & Analytics Solutions, Allianz Partners) will show how an agentic AI process can be designed and implemented using open Python libraries, with a focus on practical workflow design, decision-making and real actuarial relevance.

The session is intended for actuaries, actuarial students, AI enthusiasts and business leaders. No prior knowledge of AI will be assumed, and there is no need to have read the article series beforehand. Some familiarity with Python may be helpful, but is not required. Attendees will leave with a practical introduction to agentic AI and a clearer view of how these techniques can be applied within actuarial work.

Speakers: 

Tim Hill, Zenith Actuarial
Alexey Mashechkin, Allianz
Srinivasan Iyengar, Pacific Life Re

The Wesleyan Assurance Society is a Birmingham-based mutual that specialises in the provision of advice and life insurance products for doctors, dentists and teachers. During 2025, the society transformed the risks borne by its with-profits policyholders by restructuring the risk profile of the fund and the distribution of profits and losses. The step change in risk profile was achieved through the implementation of funded reinsurance on the society's annuity book, and unit matching on the VIF of the unitised with-profits. These were both firsts for the society. 
 
This presentation will cover how the society has balanced the interests of different groups of with-profits policyholders and how these fairly complex risk management techniques can be adopted by smaller organisations.

Speakers: 

Craig Burns, Wesleyan
Michael Swancott, Wesleyan
Jon Welsh, Wesleyan

We’ll explore the principles and origins of Islamic finance, delving into the concept of money in Islam and why interest (Riba) is problematic. We’ll examine various definitions of money and consider the practical implications of adopting these definitions, before moving on to showcase businesses adhering to Islamic finance principles to illustrate these principles in action.

Finally, we’ll examine the construction and operation of family takaful (life insurance) schemes, describing the roles of the different parties involved, the risks they assume and how their interests are protected and aligned.  In addition, attendees will also gain an appreciation of some of the key issues of concern to actuaries such as capital adequacy, surplus distribution, and pricing under Takaful.

Through this grand tour, attendees will understand why money is not an asset, how profit must be earned through risk or effort, and key actuarial differences in benefits, pricing, reserving, and capital management for family Takaful.
 
No prior knowledge is necessary for this introductory session.

Speakers: 

Sohail Ali, Kaf Insurance
Azim Mithani, FWD Takaful Malaysia

Macro‑economic shocks have a profound impact on the UK economy and on the work of actuaries. Their influence on interconnected financial markets is especially pronounced during periods of geopolitical and social uncertainty, when widely held economic assumptions are reassessed. Inflation, particularly UK market sentiment around energy prices, and long‑term interest rates have material implications for actuarial valuations, climate transition analysis, and stochastic modelling. 

In this wide‑ranging session, the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) partners with 4most to explore key trends in economic factors shaping energy security, climate risk management, and actuarial assumption‑setting. The discussion will be framed around: 

• Global political uncertainty in the Middle East and associated energy price shocks 
• Corporate governance and data availability in the transition to a net‑zero economy 
• Renewable energy capacity and the limitations of current stochastic modelling approaches 
• Practical approaches to managing public and financial risks arising from adverse climate scenarios. 

By attending this session, participants will: 

• Explore and critically reflect on current macro‑economic themes as they relate to actuarial valuations and assumption‑setting 
• Develop an understanding of key energy transition drivers and their implications for decision‑making on renewable energy capacity 
• Understand how global energy security and associated macro‑economic uncertainty link to UK government‑backed initiatives, and the resulting challenges for GAD and life insurers 
• Identify real‑world examples of how actuaries are contributing to the transition to a net‑zero economy. 

Speakers: 

Daniel Gill, 4most
Christophor Ward, GAD
Eva Grace, GAD

This session explores how actuaries, by working in partnership with other specialists, can contribute to complex societal questions, drawing on a major research partnership between Macmillan Cancer Support and Scottish Widows.  

The research projects UK cancer prevalence to 2045, bringing together actuarial modelling, clinical insight and lived experience. It uses actuarial techniques to combine public data on cancer incidence, survival and population change, and to communicate the findings to a broad and varied audience. While the headline result – that cancer prevalence is expected to increase, driven primarily by population ageing – will be familiar to life actuaries, the value lies not in novelty but in translating that insight into something credible, accessible and meaningful to much wider audiences.  

This required not only modelling expertise, but actuarial judgement in navigating data limitations, potential reputational risks and communicating with clarity to support real‑world decisions. 

The session highlights the power of partnership: combining different skills, perspectives and ways of thinking to produce research that neither organisation could have delivered alone, and which is useful not only to the participating organisations but to society more broadly. 

The findings have relevance across multiple sectors. For charities like Macmillan and for healthcare providers, they inform planning for future demand and support needs. For policymakers, they provide evidence on the long‑term implications of demographic change. For insurers and financial advisers, they support better conversations about financial preparedness, helping to address the industry‑wide protection gap. 

Speakers: 

Ian Rogers, Scottish Widows
Kate Lyons, Scottish Widows
Professor Richard Simcock, Macmillan Cancer Support

Scottish Friendly and OneFamily announced a proposal to merge in February 2026, bringing together the two mutual life assurance providers to create one of the UK’s largest mutuals.  As a mutual with a single common fund that writes with-profits business, the treatment of Scottish Friendly’s with-profits policyholders was a key consideration in the merger terms.   

This presentation will provide an insight to the approach followed to define and agree the reasonable expectations of Scottish Friendly’s with-profits policyholders, as distinct from Society membership more generally.  

Noting that this is likely to be an issue to face other friendly societies and mutuals in the coming years as they start to wind up, the discussion will cover a brief review of: 

• Project Chrysalis activity over 2008-2014 and its continued relevance today 
• Key principles that were applied in determining policyholder reasonable expectations (PRE) including different lenses through which this was considered 
• Key areas which were included in the assessment of PRE including Society background and policyholder communications 
• Options assessed for the merged organisational structure & impact to ongoing membership rights in the merged entity, including whether any merger could be considered as a reattribution 
• Approach used to define a merger enhancement value to be allocated to with-profits policyholders. 

Speakers: 

Callum Stuart, Scottish Friendly
Scott McNeill, Scottish Friendly

Credit transition risk impacts life insurance companies as a major risk on assets as well as liability valuation (through the matching adjustment or illiquidity premium).     

Solvency UK / II internal models require detailed modelling of transition risk, as do some IFRS 17 default risk models. More widely, securitisations and other structured instruments require detailed copula modelling of transition risk. 

Copula modelling of transition risk has largely focused on the Vasicek model, which uses the Gaussian Copula. Many UK and EU insurance companies use this to model their credit transition risk.  

The Gaussian Copula – “The formula that killed Wall Street” – has material limitations. In particular it is not able to adequately capture tail dependence of extreme events. The T-Copula does allow for tail dependence, and is an improved way of modelling extreme events for transition risk. 

The Extreme Events Working Party present transition risk models incorporating the T-Copula to adequately capture tail dependency. This includes methods for calibration and use for stress and scenario modelling.   These models can be used to improve Solvency UK / II and IFRS 17 modelling of credit transition risk. 

Speakers: 

James Sharpe, Sharpe Actuarial Limited
Andrew Smith, University College Dublin
Florin Ginghina, Milliman
Stuart Jarvis, PGIM

The PRA will provide an update on how it is implementing the IMOR framework, including discussion of how key regulatory returns are used in our thematic analysis, and how strands 1 and 2 of IMOR (thematic analysis, and Analysis of Change in SCR) are being used to support the PRA’s supervision of internal models. Key takeaways are intended to be a better understanding of PRA’s supervisory approach to internal models via IMOR and an opportunity for industry to share their insights with the PRA on the topics presented.

Speakers: 

Kaldip Bassi, Bank of England, PRA
Saoirse Carberry, Bank of England, PRA
Gerard Farmar, Bank of England, PRA
Avni Gangadia, Bank of England, PRA

The adoption of AI in UK healthcare provision promises to reduce the pressure on healthcare professionals to deliver ever-growing caseloads, while boosting diagnostic capacity and consistency and, ultimately, treatment. 

New technologies, supported by robotics and virtual reality, can enhance surgical outcomes, yet process failures can lead to bodily injury or death. Furthermore, while electronic health records and their summarisation improve the efficiency of risk selection and pricing, there are also challenges concerning data security. 

An additional, often underappreciated factor is the human-AI perspective: research indicates that whilst healthcare professionals may gain consistency in decision making, they also risk skills degradation, complacency and reduced situational awareness in moments where AI steps up and professionals move into a reviewer role. 

There are key considerations in terms of the governance of AI and clinical applications so that gender or racial bias, for example, does not lead to health inequalities.

In a session combining presentation and interactive elements, we plan to offer a tour of the following factors contributing to the morbidity and mortality outlook in the UK:

• The clinical focus: how to build systems that protect the health outcomes of the population 
• The human factor: how effective human-AI design can drive the quality and sustainability of healthcare provision
• Case studies of AI applications in healthcare provision and implications for the way forward
• An actuary's toolkit: framework for making sense of the impact of AI in healthcare provision for morbidity and mortality outcomes.

Speakers: 

Chloé Michel, Swiss Re
Abhishek Josh, Swiss Re
Minjie Lin, Swiss Re

Real stories of leadership, career progression and balancing family – what it actually looks like in practice

This is a panel discussion on women in life actuarial leadership roles. This panel will bring together female leaders from the life actuarial field to share their unique journeys, insights, and real-life anecdotes of trying to be great at our jobs while trying to be great at everything else at home.

We will cover:

• The practical realities (trade-offs, imperfect decisions, things that didn’t go to plan)
• Different definitions of “having it all” (and how that evolves over time)
• Visible vs invisible challenges (e.g. mental load, confidence, sponsorship vs mentorship)
• What has genuinely helped vs what sounds good in theory.

You will leave with:

• A shared sense of community – you are not alone in finding this tough!
• What organisations get right (and wrong)
• How everyone in the room can be part of the solution.

Speakers: 

Michelle Lister, Aon
Sarah Nubeebukus, Swiss Re
Nicola Kenyon, PIC
Claire Mellor, Standard Life

Asset intensive reinsurance (AIR) has become an increasingly prominent feature of the UK life insurance market, enabling insurers to manage capital requirements, enhance return on equity, and access global balance sheets. While AIR transactions can deliver legitimate risk diversification and efficiency benefits at the firm level, their growing scale and structural similarities raise important questions about systemic risk.
 
This presentation examines the potential channels through which asset intensive reinsurance could amplify vulnerabilities within the UK financial system. It explores concentration risk arising from the increased reliance on a small number of highly specialised reinsurers, correlations in asset allocation strategies, and the transmission of stress through interconnected funding, liquidity, and collateral management arrangements. 
 
The analysis also considers cross border dimensions, including the location of capital, regulatory arbitrage risks, and challenges for supervisory coordination and resolution planning. Drawing on recent market developments and stress scenarios, the presentation highlights how firm level risk transfer may, under certain conditions, transform into system wide fragility.
 
The session concludes by discussing the implications for insurers, reinsurers, and regulators, including data transparency, stress testing, and the interaction between prudential regulation and financial stability objectives. The aim is to contribute to an informed debate on how the benefits of asset intensive reinsurance can be balanced against the need to safeguard resilience in the UK life insurance sector and the wider financial system.
 
The key takeaway will be an understanding of the dimensions of systemic risk at play, and the direction of further research to address these issues.

Speakers: 

Alex Beresford, Royal London
Colin Dutkiewicz, WTW

Markets with defined contribution (DC) pension savings systems are reaching a tipping point, with many now facing the question of how to effectively support retirees in decumulation. Although the UK DC market is still in its infancy, UK insurers can learn from international experience to consider what’s next in innovation once BPA is matured.
 
In our presentation, Adam Norman (Director, EY Australia) and Sophie Woodbury (Manager, EY UK) compare the UK decumulation environment with Australian superannuation. With over £2tn of savings and 30 years of compulsory enrolment experience, Australia is the land of plenty for DC savings, supported by a robust accumulation framework. We will open with an introduction to Australian superannuation and how it compares with the UK framework, highlighting Australia's response to key challenges and how this may be a “crystal ball” for UK pension reform. 
 
The “what’s next” in the Australian case study is decumulation. With rocketing savings, Australia theoretically provides great opportunity for an insurance-based decumulation market; however, Australian take-up of retirement annuities is limited. We will deep-dive into why this is the case, the Australian regulatory response, and what this could mean for the UK market.

From this, we will close by answering the following questions:

• Does the Australian market offer an investment opportunity for UK insurers?
• What can UK insurers learn from Australia to develop innovative DC decumulation products?

Our presentation encourages attendees to think beyond BPA and consider what they can do now to support the future needs of current retirement savers.

Speakers: 

Adam Norman, EY
Sophie Woodbury, EY

A double Olympic gold medallist, Kelly Holmes became only the second woman in history to claim the 800m and 1500m titles in the same Games. She has gone on to be a mental and physical health advocate, broadcaster and award-winning writer. Over the course of her career Kelly amassed seven gold, eight silver and four bronze medals at Olympic, Commonwealth and European levels. She earned the nation’s admiration with her remarkable achievements in 2004 in Athens as the first British athlete in over 80 years to win a double gold on the track, which also saw her named BBC Sports Personality of the Year and European Athlete of the Year.

Despite achieving incredible things in her sport, privately Kelly suffered from serious mental health problems. Her frequent physical injuries also had a psychological effect, culminating in a breakdown in the run up to the World Championships before her Olympic triumph. It was after retirement that she revealed the difficulties she experienced, becoming one of the first high-profile sports people to openly discuss her battle with depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm. 

In an emotional and powerful TV documentary, Kelly Holmes: Being Me, she came out publicly as a gay woman, and reflected on the effects of trying to manage the personal and the public and the value of authenticity.

Alongside a personal look at mental health, Kelly also looks at what individuals and organisations need to do to help themselves and each other in order to work effectively. She looks at the ups and downs of her career on and off the track, and with humour and insight considers what it takes to achieve your goals. Drawing on her time with the army as well as her athletics career, she also explores team-building, planning and execution.