31 March 2026
The IFoA has recognised excellence in actuarial research through its 2025 outstanding paper prizes, celebrating work that advances both technical understanding and practical application across the profession.
The Peter Clark Prize (in memory of a former President of the Institute of Actuaries) is awarded for an outstanding paper published for an actuarial audience.
The Peter Clark Prize has been awarded to Ayşe Arık, Andrew J. G. Cairns, Erengul Dodd, Angus S. Macdonald, Adam Shao and George Streftaris for their Annals of Actuarial Science paper exploring cancer insurance pricing under different diagnosis and treatment scenarios. The judging panel highlighted the paper’s well-rounded approach, comparing modelling techniques and demonstrating how factors such as disease progression, earlier diagnosis and treatment advances can significantly influence pricing and product design.
Commenting on the award, Ayşe Arık said: “We are delighted that our work has been recognised by the IFoA. Our paper examined how standard models may overlook key features such as stage-specific progression and survival, and how more advanced approaches can better reflect these dynamics, with important implications for pricing and product design.”
A Highly Commended award was also given to Jean-François Bégin, Barbara Sanders and Wenyuan Zhou for their paper on pension plan consolidation.
The Geoffrey Heywood Prize (named for a former President of the Institute of Actuaries who established the prize with a bequest in his will) is awarded for excellent levels of communication and engagement with a general actuarial audience.
The Geoffrey Heywood Prize 2025 has been awarded to Zhan Liang Chan, Niharika Anthwal and Xin Yung Lee for their British Actuarial Journal paper on embedded insurance and recommendation systems. The panel recognised the paper’s clarity and relevance, noting its ability to explain a complex and evolving topic to a broad actuarial audience.
Speaking on behalf of the authors, Zhan Liang Chan said: “We are honoured to be recognised by the IFoA. Our work explores embedded insurance as a growing distribution channel and proposes a needs-based recommendation framework to better align products with individual customer needs, helping to improve access and close the protection gap.”
A Highly Commended award was also given to Angus S. Macdonald and Stephen J. Richards for their paper on contemporary mortality models.
Together, this year’s winning papers highlight how actuarial thinking continues to evolve—supporting better decision-making, improved customer outcomes, and innovation across the insurance landscape.
You can find out more about the prizes and read past winning papers on our website: