Alan Marshall, Review Actuary at the IFoA, previews his Life Conference 2024 plenary session, which features an unreleased professional skills video related to equity release: ‘Growthbusters’.
The professionalism skills material produced by the IFoA is an important resource to help our members think about ethical and professional challenges they might face, away from the focus on day-to-day work. As part of the resources, video scenarios put together by the IFoA Professionalism Team, with the fantastic support of the Professionalism Skills Working Group, hopefully provide a range of stimulating situations to get actuaries thinking about how to apply the Actuaries’ Code in practice.
I’ve been lucky enough to provide some support to my IFoA colleagues on this. Recently I got the opportunity to put together a scenario from start to finish, from storyboarding and scripting, to filming the follow-up video for the VLE resources and supporting the scenario video itself. The filming work is great fun, and we are lucky enough to work with a great company that puts those involved at ease, perhaps even providing a glimpse of what a future broadcast career might look like. Or indeed not.
But with this scenario we go one step further, with a planned professionalism plenary at the upcoming IFoA Life Conference 2024, where we will use the freshly published scenario to encourage input and discussion from conference delegates. It’s the first plenary of the conference so hopefully there won’t be too many bleary-eyed participants, although to be fair the last thing I will need reminded of is a few hundred actuaries waiting to hear what I have to say. Luckily, I’ll try to keep that to a minimum and encourage active participation in the session, with a safe space for members to discuss issues raised within the scenario.
Without giving too much away, the story looks at a sales and marketing dilemma for lifetime mortgages. As is often the case for such professionalism scenarios, we have a plot where actuaries need to consider a balance of outcomes. This won’t be easy with a driven sales and marketing director looking to drive a particular solution which may lead to unintended consequences. All aspects of the code are up for grabs, with perhaps a focus on communications, competence and care, and speaking up. I’m particularly chuffed we have such a scenario, as it follows on from findings in our earlier thematic review looking at product and pricing work of actuaries for equity release products.
So, if you are coming along to the conference, I hope you enjoy the plenary, and it stimulates useful ethical and professional considerations. If not then pop onto the professionalism VLE, and perhaps organise a session with some colleagues. And hey presto, one hour of valuable professionalism CPD and even more importantly, a deeper understanding of the ethics of being an actuary.
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