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The Future Role of the Actuary

Beyond the spreadsheet: How actuaries can stay indispensable in the age of AI pricing. The actuarial role in specialty insurance has changed more in the past five years than in the previous two decades. The profession once defined by model-building and technical mastery now finds itself at the heart of strategic decision-making. We’re seeing a fundamental rethink of what it means to add value, with the rapid spread of generative AI (Gen AI) at the forefront of a boom in data-led distribution leading to faster underwriting cycles.
Posted on Thursday Oct 23

Leadership, culture and the right innovation portfolio

Boards and senior leadership teams are increasingly focused on what makes innovation possible at their organizations. Yet despite the opportunities created in today’s dynamic business environment, many organizations fall short of their innovation goals. Effective leaders find that success in innovation requires three components: leadership commitment, a supportive culture and the right innovation portfolio.
Posted on Wednesday Oct 22

That’s not the shape of my curve

Some of my articles cover broad interest topics, like student loans or equity returns. Spoiler alert- this is not one of those. This is about one of those awkward technical things which can have real world consequences, like how pooled LDI fund collateral rules exacerbated the gilts crisis. This is about the nuances of breakeven inflation curve smoothing on LDI benchmarks. The film deal is in the works.
Posted on Tuesday Oct 21

Transforming compliance into competitive advantage

For decades, life insurers in the UK operated on a “silent partner” model: engage the consumer when they buy a policy, send the occasional annual statement, and then only resurface when the policy lapses, or worse, when the policyholder passes away. This minimal interaction may have been convenient for insurers, but it has left customers disconnected from a product designed to protect their most important possession - their life and their families.
Posted on Monday Oct 20

Sustainability in bulk annuities

The UK’s pension landscape is undergoing a profound transformation. As most defined benefit (DB) pension schemes mature and close, trustees and sponsors are increasingly turning to bulk annuity transactions – buy-ins and buyouts – to secure members’ benefits. But as these high-value deals reshape the future of retirement benefits security, a crucial question has emerged: how can we ensure that the assets underpinning these promises are managed sustainably – for both people and planet – so pensions are paid not only today but also tomorrow?
Posted on Friday Oct 17

Harnessing data to drive positive impact

Examining how elevated inflation and the run of catastrophic events could help fuel transformation in the way the Non-life sector interacts with customers. Understanding risk is at the heart of what insurance professionals do. It means they can help consumers protect the things they own and the people they love, while providing the framework for communities to recover from disaster. Consumers across the UK got a very real sense of the value of insurance protection earlier this year, following storm Éowyn .
Posted on Thursday Oct 16

Vote now for Stars of the Future 2025

The nominations are now in and the shortlist has been finalised. The nominees are waiting for your votes. You can now vote for someone for Stars of the Future 2025, sponsored by Star Actuarial Futures. It’s vital to remember that we all started somewhere and becoming an actuary is no easy feat. We relish acknowledging the emerging talent within the actuarial market and celebrate the ones to watch with our Stars of the Future Awards. All of the finalists are celebrated and highlighted with three lucky winners taking home an award.
Posted on Wednesday Oct 15

Pension scheme cyber attacks are you prepared

In the ever-evolving world of cyber risks, governing bodies, trustees and pension boards must understand their responsibilities and know how to effectively respond in the event of an attack. The cyber threat to pension schemes specifically is increasing. Capita has reported cumulative net losses of £29.3m to date since its 2023 data breach, which in that year contributed to share prices plummeting 54% and reputational damage that impacted both Capita and the affected schemes. That’s without even mentioning the impact on individual scheme members and those dealing with the incident.
Posted on Tuesday Oct 14

Final Day for nominations for the 2025 Actuarial Post Awards

We would like to announce, that after yet another record number of nominations for the Actuarial Post Awards that today is the final day for nominations. This will be the 13th year of running the awards and each year they become more popular with ever increasing numbers nominated and voted upon. This year we welcome back our sponsor, Pension Insurance Corporation plc (PIC), a specialist insurer of defined benefit pension funds, for sponsoring Actuary of the Year 2025, alongside our long- term sponsor partners Bolton Associates, sponsoring GI Actuary of the Year 2025 and Star Actuarial Futures for sponsoring Sustainability Actuary of the Year 2025.
Posted on Monday Oct 13

The global mining insurance market is softening, fast

Excavating value in a soft market. Rates are down, coverage is broadening, and capacity is strong. But risk leaders must stay sharp. The property damage and business interruption (PDBI) insurance market for mining has softened in the past 12 months. Capacity for any one mining risk is around $1.5 billion. Due to the volatile nature of losses in the industry, mining risks have historically come with healthy premiums for insurers, making the sector an attractive for insurers chasing top-line growth.
Posted on Friday Oct 10

Pension Gains: How to ‘work out’ pensions

This year’s pension attention campaign is focused on how people can strengthen their pension, and gain pounds. A light-hearted message, fronted by Ross Kemp, that provided some simple pointers to help individuals improve their pension. The campaign highlighted the difference that relatively simple actions can make to our financial fitness in retirement, and the importance of paying our pensions some attention. The campaign also highlighted what individuals can do, ahead of the raft of big reforms that will come with the Pension Schemes Bill, and how the industry can help them.
Posted on Thursday Oct 9

Everything MGAs need to know about Cyber Risk

This training session will outline why hackers target the insurance sector, how their tactics, techniques and procedures have evolved, and the steps businesses need to take to achieve operational resilience and regulatory compliance. Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, delegates will be able to: - 1. Understand how (and why) hackers compromise targets. 2. Why operational resilience is now a legal imperative. 3. How businesses can achieve effective levels of operational cyber resilience.
Posted on Wednesday Oct 8

How demographic change is rewriting the rules of retirement

Demographics isn’t just dry tables and charts or esoteric academic debate. It’s about forces that are actively reshaping the world we live in, from rising life expectancy and shifting fertility rates to the growing pressures of an ageing population. How are these forces going to impact the future of our economy, healthcare, and pensions systems? In season four of Beyond Curious with LCP, I have explored the challenges and opportunities these forces bring, with experts across pensions, health, economics, longevity and politics.
Posted on Wednesday Oct 8

Salary sacrifice and pensions

With rumours circulating about the future of salary sacrifice, what could be the impact on pensions if the government decide to target this tax provision? As speculation grows around the future of salary sacrifice, many reward and benefits professionals are asking what potential changes could mean for pension arrangements as we approach the Autumn Budget. Salary sacrifice has long been valued as a tax-efficient mechanism, benefiting both employers and employees.
Posted on Tuesday Oct 7

As global risks grow are insurers capital models up to it

Our fast-changing world has become increasingly interconnected. Risks such as geopolitical instability and climate change continue to escalate on the world stage. With both risk dependencies and risk drivers surfacing and evolving more and more rapidly, so much is changing so quickly that by the time this article is published it may well be (slightly) outdated. Yet capital modelling techniques have barely changed, despite increasing pressure to better understand this more complex and fast-moving world.
Posted on Monday Oct 6

October 2025 Edition of the Actuarial Post Magazine

Congratulations to the Red Roses in winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup final by defeating Canada 33-13 and whilst we are dishing out the plaudits a huge well done to The European team in winning the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, despite the partisan ‘heckling’. Rachel Reeves has given her Labour conference speech ahead of the Autumn Budget where she spent most of the day fending off question on tax rises, with a projected £30 billion shortfall the need for extra funding seems clear, however, where the tax rises will appear will remain open to conjecture until the Budget is announced.
Posted on Friday Oct 3

Summers over so now is the time for investors to refocus

Whilst most of us will take a break over summer and try to “de-tune” out of work, markets were quite the opposite and decided not to take a holiday at all this year! While headlines cheered record highs in equities and gold, the underlying picture has grown more uncomfortable: weaker growth, stickier inflation, and gilt yields at multi-decade highs. In a world where equities, bonds and even safe-haven currencies can all fall together, investors need to be more selective than ever.
Posted on Thursday Oct 2

Pensions dashboards time to think to the future

Pensions dashboards have received plenty of press coverage and LGPS Fund Officers are well aware of the need to connect to the eco-system by 31 October 2025. By now you should have decided on your Integrated Service Provider (ISP) and be making sure the matching data you will use is accurate enough to get your Fund over the line and ready for when those initial queries come in. Now isn't the time to rest on our laurels. Going forward, you might want to expand the selection of matching data you’re willing to use.
Posted on Wednesday Oct 1

A Silver Bullet for Private Investment and Climate Action

Recent policy developments — including the Mansion House Accord, which targets 10% allocation to private markets with at least 5% in UK assets — have reignited debate around the role of pension schemes in supporting domestic investment. Much of the focus has been on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) and large Master Trusts. However, there is a unique and timely opportunity for the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to unlock a broader wave of investment from Defined Benefit (DB) schemes.
Posted on Tuesday Sep 30

Underwriting strategy in practice

In last month’s article, we explored the future of underwriting and pricing in the London Market, including the role of tech and automation as well as the importance of maintaining a strong reputation and clear communication with the broking market. This month, we move from what to aim for to how to get there. We set out practical frameworks for articulating and managing underwriting strategy over time, and for navigating the common blockers that can derail even the best-intentioned plans.
Posted on Monday Sep 29

Reimagining pensions and the conditions for innovation

Dr Marion Lean reflects on The Pensions Regulator’s second innovation event and the co-creation of seven design principles to guide innovation in workplace pensions. She explores how TPR is using design-led approaches like co-design and hackathons to foster creativity, collaboration and user-centred thinking across the industry. With over 50 leaders in attendance, the recent event marked another bold step towards building a more inclusive, transparent and future-focused pensions system.
Posted on Friday Sep 26

Delivering value in defined contribution

Over the last decade, we have seen a significant shift in the defined contribution (DC) pension industry in the UK. The DC market has consolidated: own trust pension schemes have been in decline (and to a lesser extent contract-based schemes too), with Master Trusts emerging as the main beneficiaries. Today, around 3 in 10 employers (28%) provide pension plans using a master trust arrangement and, with government policy aiming to enable a small number of DC megafunds, this momentum towards consolidation is only likely to grow.
Posted on Thursday Sep 25

5 steps to improving your pension scheme’s cyber security

The disruption to businesses and consumers from recent cyber-attacks such as those affecting Jaguar Land Rover, M&S and the Co-op highlight the increasing sophistication and frequency of these attacks. We were not surprised that trustees continued to rank cyber security and AI as the systemic risk that worried them most in our DB pensions priorities 2025 survey. We have increasingly seen a shift in trustees’ mindsets to “when”, rather than “if” so it’s pleasing to see that respondents to our survey also felt more prepared to address cyber risk in 2025 when compared to the previous year.
Posted on Wednesday Sep 24

Pensions Commission must provide better retirement reforms

Millions risk being condemned to retirement poverty unless the UK’s pensions system is overhauled, PensionBee has warned, as it calls on the Pensions Commission to deliver bold reforms to tackle deep-rooted structural inequalities. In a letter to the Commission, they highlight how women, unpaid carers, the self-employed and lower-paid workers are being locked out of the progress achieved through Auto-Enrolment, while many others are being held back by a pensions market that is too complex and sluggish to navigate.
Posted on Tuesday Sep 23

How to get more value from your Actuarial Function Reports

The Actuarial Function Report (AFR) is key for meeting regulatory standards and reassuring Boards and stakeholders. However, the time spent on these reports can limit actuaries' ability to offer practical business insights. In this paper, we discuss practical ideas for transforming the AFR into a tool that not only meets regulatory expectations but also enhances the Board’s understanding of business risks, performance and opportunities.
Posted on Monday Sep 22