Writing & Thinking

Projecting the unit fund in an IFRS 17 VFA model: the monthly roll-forward, where survival probabilities attach to the cash flows leaving the fund, the death strain the risk charges price, and how the paragraph B104 split routes each movement between insurance finance income and expense and the CSM. A step-by-step walk through the mechanics.

ifrs-17 · vfa · actuarial-modelling · unit-linked · …

12 Jul 2026 · 15 min read

How the variable fee approach's insurance finance result splits between profit or loss and other comprehensive income: the paragraph 89(b) election that fixes the mismatch, why the asset's IFRS 9 classification decides how much of it needs fixing, and what the split looks like with and without the election.

ifrs-17 · vfa · actuarial-modelling · insurance-finance-income-expense · …

12 Jul 2026 · 13 min read

A CAS survey of IFRS 17 Premium Allocation Approach implementation practice across 60+ general insurers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia — measurement model, eligibility, discounting, risk adjustment, tooling, and the pattern that emerges three years in.

ifrs-17 · paa · asia · benchmarking · …

29 Jun 2026 · 13 min read

How to read the IFRS 17 GMM income statement as a set of profit drivers — the insurance service result and the net investment result, the CSM and RA release, the current- and past-service experience variances, the loss component, and where each one lands in profit or loss.

ifrs-17 · gmm · actuarial-modelling · income-statement · …

29 Jun 2026 · 12 min read

A parametric sandstorm policy pays on a measured dust index, not an assessed loss. Building the payout model is a fixed sequence — choose the index, set the trigger, shape the payout curve, quantify basis risk, price from index history, write the settlement terms. How each step is built, in the order the work is done.

parametric-insurance · climate-risk · reinsurance · actuarial-pricing · …

28 Jun 2026 · 14 min read

Saudi Arabia's Insurance Authority is moving the market to Risk-Based Capital — pilot 2026, live January 2027. Worked through in the order an actuary assembles the number: the two layers, the solvency ratio, the four risk charges, the diversification penalty, and the levers before go-live.

ifrs-17 · risk-based-capital · solvency · saudi-arabia · …

28 Jun 2026 · 10 min read

Reviewing an IFRS 17 BEL analysis of movement: roll the LFRC reserve forward opening to closing, get comfort on the movements per cash-flow type, then confirm they pull through to insurance revenue, IFIE, and the CSM and loss-component unlocks. A step-by-step review of each stage.

ifrs-17 · gmm · actuarial-modelling · bel · …

22 Jun 2026 · 15 min read

GMM forecasting means running off the in-force book, layering new business with explicit volume and growth assumptions, and projecting the balance sheet so its movements drive the P&L. How the projection is built, view by view.

ifrs-17 · gmm · actuarial-modelling · forecasting · …

15 Jun 2026 · 16 min read

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 · 9 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 · 7 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 · 6 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 · 7 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 · 7 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 · 7 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 · 6 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 · 6 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 · 6 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 · 7 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 · 6 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 · 7 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