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Cross practice research working parties

The following are active cross practice research working parties.

Volunteer for a working party

All members are encouraged to volunteer for a research working party. If you have your own ideas for member-led research you would like to pursue, please contact our Practice Communities Team below or refer to our Guidance for Research Working Parties (562 KB PDF).

Members interested in volunteering for a research working party should check our volunteer vacancies.

Research working parties

Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on the economic and social landscape in which health and care companies operate, with implications for the work of health and care actuaries.

There are currently few resources available to health and care actuaries, particularly to help them identify specific issues that are relevant to their work and associated actuarial advice, and to help them explore the potential impacts.

About

Chair: Paul Lacock
Established: 2020

This working party will assess the need for, and develop a framework to assess the potential financial impact of physical and transition climate-related risks beyond the short to medium-term horizons typically used by companies e.g. within the ORSA.

This will be a multi-disciplinary investigation looking at insurance liabilities and assets backing insurance business.

About

Chair: Adel Drew
Established: 2022

This working party has three main areas of focus:

  • understanding how current practices in climate risk reporting by large UK pension funds and insurers have been affected by the relevant FCA/PRA and DWP mandatory reporting requirements effective 2022-2023 reporting year,
  • comparing these practices with climate change best practices by the largest insurers and pension funds subject to FCA requirements, and local government authority PFs subject to the equivalent requirements of the Department of Levelling Up,
  • examining climate change reporting practices by major corporate sponsors of UK occupational pension schemes.

About

Chair: Paul Klumpes
Established: 2022

The expansion of insurers investing in the Equity Release Mortgages (ERM), and the asset’s long term use to back annuity portfolios, brings ERM into scope of the “matching adjustment” of Solvency II.

Key objectives

  1. To assist the Life Board and Life Research Committee to identify and promote new research on this current hot topic
  2. Preparation for any future consultation responses in relation to ERMs
  3. A review of the consequences for the IFoA from the variation in valuations placed on ERMs, often through actuarial assumptions on common economic factors
  4. To present at IFoA Conferences such as Life Conferences and regional societies (see the presentation at the Life Conference 2017)
  5. To produce a final report on actuarial practice in respect of (3) and a separate research paper on approaches to valuation of the no negative equity guarantee and how current actuarial practice could evolve.

Equity Release Mortgages 2020 Working Party: terms of reference (80 KB PDF)

About

Chair: Raj Saundh
Established: 2016

The working party aims to develop a holistic framework to assess Environmental, Social, and Governance factors across the breadth of an organisation (outside of focussing on investment applications) and the effective management of the risks associated with these factors.

About

Chair: TBC
Established: 2024

The Extreme Events Working Party is a cross-practice working party that aims for a better and wider understanding of the various methodologies that could be used for developing benchmark figures, including the advantages and disadvantages of each methodology.

The objectives of the Extreme Events Working Party include developing robust values for a variety of tables. There is scope for the working party to give consideration to the process for justifying the use of an internal model which would take account of the requirements of Solvency II, as well as of BAS, and any other relevant mandatory requirements.

This cross practice working party is shared by Life and F&I.

About

Chair: James Sharpe
Established: 2012

There is a lack of knowledge which many financial institutions have about infrastructure investment. This working party will undertake research to uncover information about the risks and rewards which investing institutions are likely to experience

Many financial institutions still believe that they do not know enough about infrastructure investment. The working party undertakes research to uncover information about the risks and rewards that investors are likely to experience.

The working party since its inception has collaborated with the policy team on its policy work on Infrastructure.

You can also find more content from the working party through our website.

About

Chair: Chris Lewin
Members: 12
Established: 2014

This working party will look at insurance implications for LGBTQ+ customers. The working party has identified 3 key focus areas it wishes to explore with the help of working party volunteers:

  • Advertising e.g., improving LGBTQ+ representation in insurance advertising
  • Customer service experience e.g., improving LGBTQ+ customers’ experience when dealing with customer service agents
  • Pricing and product design e.g., investigating claims of inequitable insurance policies for trans individuals, understanding the insurance T&Cs for customers with HIV.

About

Chair: Chris Cullen
Established: 2024

The focus of this working party will be to help members gain a better understanding of the issues the industry faced in Autumn 2022. This will involve analysis at a whole scheme level, mandate level, and an instrument-specific level.

It will look to cover areas such as:

  • the approaches to calculating and holding required collateral
  • detailed analysis of collateral monitoring approaches and oversight, and
  • the mechanics of collateral management.

Liquidity risks reach further than LDI alone, with pension schemes employing derivatives elsewhere in their investment strategies, which the working party will include in its investigations.

About

Chair: Michael O’Connor
Established: 2023

The Mental Health Working Party aims to raise the level of understanding of mental health amongst actuaries, promote the consideration of mental health in the design of products and processes, and explore data and modelling for mental health risk factors.

There are four workstreams:

  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Digital Mental Health
  • Data Insurer Survey & Research
  • Understanding and Supporting Mental Health

About

Chair: Lisa Balboa and Joe Wilson
Established: 2020

The goal of this working party is to support the life insurance, pensions and retirement industry with relevant research to support new product innovation by bringing together research on investments, products and consumers with the ultimate goal to increase consumer choice and value for money.

Key objectives

  • This is an opportunity to produce thought leadership that can be used to influence
  • Compile and review current literature in the pensions, investments and life insurance arenas to ensure access to up-to-date information.
  • Perform modelling to show the impact of offering certain guarantees and explore the impact of missing products (e.g. deferred annuities).
  • Perform modelling to consider a range of different investment strategies (e.g. long term investments from age 55 to 85 as a core illiquid strategy with shorter term bonds to provide cashflows for drawdown early on, alongside potential equity release cashflows).
  • Provoke thought leadership and innovation within the industry through presentations and forums to gain wider input.

About

Chair: Esther Hawley
Established: 2018

The Operational Risk Working Party (ORWP) is a Cross Practice working party and acts as the conduit for Operational Risk (OR) research across all practice areas. The Operational Risk Working Party aims to assist actuaries and others in the modelling and management of operational risk. The Working Party has already produced papers on inputs to operational risk models and on operational risk dependencies. It is currently working on a paper on how to validate operational risk models.

The Operational Risk Working Party aims to assist actuaries and others in the modelling and management of operational risk. One of the key challenges in modelling operational risk is the modelling of dependencies between operational risks, and between operational and non-operational risks such as market, credit and insurance risk.

About

Chair: Patrick Kelliher
Established: 2014

This cross practice working party has been created to examine the main implications of Climate Change for General Insurance actuaries and identify the best ways to manage those implications.

The purpose of the working party is to create a practical guide to climate change, specifically for General Insurance (GI) actuaries. The guide will build upon the risk alert sent out by the IFoA in May 2017. The working party will aim to deliver this guide at GIRO 2018.

The Practical Guide to Climate Change for GI practitioners is part of a series of practical guides that the Sustainability Board has produced/is producing. The other practical guides in this series include:

  • DB Pensions (with accompanying papers around mortality and covenants)
  • DC Pensions
  • Practical Guide to Climate Change for Life Actuaries
  • Practical Guide to Climate Change for Investment Actuaries

Objectives

  • Produce a report or series of reports aimed at the different roles within the general insurance sphere

About

Chair: Mark Rothwell
Established: 2018

This cross practice working party has been created to examine the main implications of Climate Change for Investment actuaries and identify the best ways to manage those implications.

The purpose of the working party is to create a practical guide to climate change, specifically for Investment Insurance actuaries. The guide will build upon the risk alert sent out by the IFoA in May 2017.

The Practical Guide to Climate Change for Investment Actuaries is part of a series of practical guides that the Sustainability Board has produced/is producing. Other practical guides in this series include:

  • DB Pensions (with accompanying papers around mortality and covenants)
  • DC Pensions
  • Practical Guide to Climate Change for General Insurance Actuaries
  • Practical Guide to Climate Change for Life Actuaries

Objectives

  • Produce a report or series of reports aimed at the different roles within the investment sphere

About

Chair: Patrick Race
Established: 2018

This cross practice working party has been created to examine the main implications of Climate Change for Life actuaries and identify the best ways to manage those implications.

The purpose of the working party is to create a practical guide to climate change, specifically for Life Insurance actuaries. The guide will build upon the risk alert sent out by the IFoA in May 2017.

The Practical Guide to Climate Change for Life Actuaries is part of a series of practical guides that the Sustainability Board has produced/is producing. Other practical guides in this series include:

  • DB Pensions (with accompanying papers around mortality and covenants)
  • DC Pensions
  • Practical Guide to Climate Change for General Insurance Actuaries
  • Practical Guide to Climate Change for Investment Actuaries

Objectives

  • Produce a report or series of reports aimed at the different roles within the life insurance sphere

About

Chair: David Ford
Established: 2018

The Programming for Actuarial Work Working Party is a cross-practice group established to explore and support the adoption of best practice computer programming concepts and techniques in daily actuarial work.

Key objectives

  • explore key programming concepts and techniques in the context of actuarial work
  • support members with developing their programming skills
  • provide a platform for members to collaborate in developing software that can be used as building blocks for actuarial applications.

The Programming for Actuarial Work Working Party operates within a Terms of Reference (103 KB PDF).

About

Chair: Georgios Bakoloukas
Established: 2017

This working party will focus on the call to action, focusing on what can be done to address the pensions gap moving forward. Practical and potentially technical output will be required, for example, to pull together the economic arguments as to why it makes sense for changes to be made to the current status quo.

About

Chair: Alexandra Miles
Established: 2022

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