Writing & Thinking
Filterable index of long-form writing on IFRS 17, AI governance, insurance, and actuarial practice.
Andre Erasmus
IFRS 17 & AI insights for insurance practitioners
FY2026 is the first full budget cycle most insurers run on IFRS 17 baselines. The reviewer's lens is different from the IFRS 4 era. Here are the ten views that do the actual work — and what each one tells you.
ifrs-17 · paa · actuarial-modelling · forecasting · …
21 Apr 2026 · 14 min read
Analysis of AI regulation for insurance across 70+ jurisdictions. The EU AI Act, the US state patchwork, MAS MindForge, and the insurance-specific gap most frameworks still have.
artificial-intelligence · insurance-regulation · eu-ai-act · governance
16 Apr 2026 · 8 min read
Analysis of IFRS 17 adoption across 128 jurisdictions. The patterns — EU drift, ASEAN leapfrog, Africa's split, Gulf takaful work, the US anomaly — matter more than the colour coding.
ifrs-17 · global-markets · regulatory-tracking · insurance-operations
14 Apr 2026 · 8 min read
On 10 April 2026, South Africa gazetted its Draft National AI Policy. An 8-week read for anyone building, regulating, or deploying AI in SA — not only insurers — covering operational obligations, institutional architecture, and what comes next.
artificial-intelligence · ai-policy · ai-governance · south-africa · …
12 Apr 2026 · 13 min read
Go-live is where the real work starts. Here are 6 operational challenges that surface after IFRS 17 implementation — and practical approaches to each.
ifrs-17 · insurance-operations · actuarial-consulting · post-implementation
7 Apr 2026 · 6 min read
What does an IFRS 17 production environment actually look like? A walkthrough of the 5-layer architecture — from data transformation to automated reporting.
ifrs-17 · actuarial-modelling · insurance-operations · production-architecture
7 Apr 2026 · 6 min read
A 5-stage iterative lifecycle for AI use cases in insurance — from context and design through ongoing monitoring — and why treating governance as a one-off approval gate is where most programmes break.
ai-governance · artificial-intelligence · mlops · risk-management · …
5 Apr 2026 · 5 min read
Under MAS MindForge guidelines, any model that learns from data is classified as AI — including your pricing GLM. Here is what that means for governance.
ai-governance · mas-mindforge · insurance-technology · risk-management · …
31 Mar 2026 · 6 min read
From underwriting risk scoring to personalised pricing, here are 7 AI use cases already deployed in production at leading insurers and financial institutions.
ai-governance · insurance-technology · actuarial-science · artificial-intelligence
30 Mar 2026 · 6 min read
A probability-weighted scenario model for the Strait of Hormuz closure — tracing five outcomes through oil prices, equities, currencies, and interest rates.
scenario-analysis · global-markets · risk-management · oil-crisis · …
30 Mar 2026 · 6 min read
The one question that separates resilient actuarial teams from tool-dependent ones — could you do this without the software?
actuarial-consulting · software · virtual-actuary · professional-judgement · …
12 May 2025 · 6 min read
Physical, transition and legal/reputational climate risks don't hit insurers directly — they flow through micro and macro transmission channels into traditional risk categories. A walkthrough of the mechanics.
climate-risk · ifrs-s2 · tcfd · risk-management · …
10 Apr 2024 · 5 min read
The IPCC disaster-risk framing applied to insurance. Hazard, exposure and vulnerability are the three variables most actuaries model. Time is the fourth — and it's the one traditional models underweight.
climate-risk · physical-risk · ipcc · scenario-analysis · …
3 Apr 2024 · 5 min read
Scenario analysis and stress testing get used interchangeably in climate-risk reporting. They are not the same tool. The difference matters for ORSA, IFRS S2, and any serious view of climate resilience.
climate-risk · scenario-analysis · stress-testing · sam · …
27 Mar 2024 · 5 min read
A bird's-eye map of how insurers, banks and pension funds are impacted by climate change — and where the actuarial function fits across underwriting, reserving, ALM, capital and disclosure.
climate-risk · actuarial-science · assa · insurance · …
20 Mar 2024 · 6 min read
IFRS S2 compliance is not just a reporting burden. Walked through as four pillars, the standard becomes a lens for surfacing material risks and opportunities an insurer's existing governance may already be tracking.
ifrs-s2 · issb · climate-risk · disclosure · …
13 Mar 2024 · 5 min read
The PA's two climate guidance notes, their relationship to GOI 3, TCFD and IFRS S2 — and a 90-day getting-started plan for a South African insurer.
climate-risk · south-africa · prudential-authority · orsa · …
6 Mar 2024 · 5 min read
NGFS scenarios describe a world without storms, wars or crashes. Real transition planning needs short-horizon scenarios calibrated to the insurer's actual book.
climate-risk · scenario-design · ngfs · net-zero · …
28 Feb 2024 · 5 min read
The practical dials of climate scenario design — narrative, climate factors, sector, firm, activity and time — and how insurers calibrate each for ORSA versus strategic planning.
climate-risk · scenario-design · modelling · granularity · …
21 Feb 2024 · 5 min read
Why parametric products — transparent, index-linked, decoupled from direct loss — are moving from niche experiment to primary climate risk transfer tool, and what that means for IFRS 17 classification.
parametric-insurance · climate-risk · reinsurance · innovation · …
14 Feb 2024 · 6 min read
Climate disclosure was the opening act. Nature (TNFD) and inequality (TIFD/TSFD) are next — here is how they connect, and what actuaries should be tracking now.
tnfd · tifd · esg · disclosure · …
7 Feb 2024 · 5 min read
The first 12 European Sustainability Reporting Standards — double materiality, value-chain scope, and why they matter for insurers outside the EU via parent groups and reinsurance counterparties.
esrs · csrd · eu · climate-risk · …
31 Jan 2024 · 5 min read
A small formula change with large management-reporting consequences — moving the combined ratio from net claims over net premiums to the gross-plus-reinsurance construction under IFRS 17.
ifrs-17 · ifrs-4 · combined-ratio · short-term-insurance · …
17 Jan 2024 · 6 min read
The Bank of England's distinction between capability gaps and regime gaps — and what it implies for SAM, Solvency II, and climate capital add-ons in South Africa.
sam · solvency-capital · climate-risk · bank-of-england · …
12 Apr 2023 · 6 min read
The IFRS 17 measurement engines downstream of the actuarial model need cash flows in a specific shape, on a specific timing grid, with a specific decomposition. A practitioner's walk through what the projection engine has to produce — and where legacy projections typically fall short.
ifrs-17 · actuarial-modelling · insurance-operations · csm · …
12 Apr 2023 · 5 min read
The IFRS 17 disclosure requirements drive the entire measurement architecture backwards from reporting day. A practitioner's view of the actuarial disclosure items the standard asks for — reconciliations, time-bucket analyses, judgements — and what each of them implies for the projection engine.
ifrs-17 · insurance-operations · actuarial-modelling · csm · …
5 Apr 2023 · 5 min read
Midway through a build, the question of whether IFRS 17 is worth the cost comes up often. A practitioner's walk through the IASB's stated motivations — what actually improves, what gets harder, and where the standard is unusually elegant.
ifrs-17 · insurance-operations · csm · risk-adjustment · …
29 Mar 2023 · 6 min read
IFRS 17 broke assumptions that most in-force actuarial models were built on. A practitioner's walk through five specific gaps — run order, aggregation, profitability testing, grouping, and the buy-vs-build decision that follows.
ifrs-17 · actuarial-modelling · csm · gmm · …
12 Apr 2022 · 5 min read
Data is the longest-running, most expensive workstream on an IFRS 17 build. A practitioner's walk through the staging platform, the vendor input problem, and the transformations that sit between them.
ifrs-17 · data-governance · data-quality · insurance-operations · …
5 Apr 2022 · 6 min read
The prototype or shadow model is one of the most underrated pieces of an IFRS 17 build. A practitioner's walk through what to look for — ETL flexibility, configurability, traceability — and the use cases that make or break the choice.
ifrs-17 · actuarial-software · vendor-selection · actuarial-modelling · …
29 Mar 2022 · 6 min read
IFRS 17 is a systems problem as much as a reporting one. A practitioner's walk through the four components that sit on the critical path — actuarial model, measurement engine, staging platform, and GL integration — and how they connect.
ifrs-17 · production-architecture · insurance-operations · actuarial-modelling · …
22 Mar 2022 · 6 min read
The first IFRS 17 close is where design meets reality. A practitioner's walk through the seven process gaps that surface between the subledger, the general ledger, and the audit workpack — and how to close them.
ifrs-17 · reporting-process · insurance-operations · accounting-engine · …
15 Mar 2022 · 6 min read
Specialist capacity is the scarcest resource on most IFRS 17 programmes. A practitioner's view of the resourcing constraints that actually bite — parallel-implementation pressure, the consultant market, the handover from project team to BAU, and the internal capacity gap nobody put on the roadmap.
ifrs-17 · resourcing · insurance-operations · post-implementation · …
8 Mar 2022 · 7 min read
The specific tooling I use to validate IFRS 17 accounting engines — shadow models in Python, xlwings test harnesses, test case generators, input converters, diff viewers, and the audit-trace scripts that make recalculation practical at scale.
ifrs-17 · validation · accounting-engine · python · …
1 Mar 2022 · 7 min read
Validating an IFRS 17 measurement engine is a structured, automated exercise — not a checklist. A practitioner's walk through what you validate, the test cycle, the debugging order, and the audit trail that has to survive a year.
ifrs-17 · actuarial-modelling · insurance-operations · production-architecture · …
12 Apr 2021 · 7 min read
The biggest bottleneck on most IFRS 17 programmes is not methodology — it is getting data into the accounting engine in a format it can actually use. A practitioner's walk through the seven input categories vendors ask for, and where the ETL work lands.
ifrs-17 · accounting-engine · data-quality · data-governance · …
29 Mar 2021 · 6 min read
A practitioner's survey of the IFRS 17 accounting-engine market — the three categories of solution on offer, how they plug into insurer architectures, and what each is actually good at.
ifrs-17 · actuarial-software · vendor-selection · accounting-engine · …
22 Mar 2021 · 6 min read
Different insurers sit at very different points on the IFRS 17 maturity scale — from gap analysis through to live configuration. A practitioner's map of where the work actually is, which phases are dragging, and what being behind the front runners really costs.
ifrs-17 · insurance-operations · vendor-selection · actuarial-modelling · …
15 Mar 2021 · 6 min read
A practitioner's methodology for selecting an IFRS 17 accounting engine — component scoping, buy-versus-build per module, scoring criteria, and the trade-offs around traceability, configuration, and general ledger integration that matter at audit time.
ifrs-17 · vendor-selection · accounting-engine · insurance-operations · …
8 Mar 2021 · 7 min read
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