Our Perspective
Solvency II on pensions – a necessary evil?
Posted on 30-04-2012 by Celene Lee | 0 comments
In February 2012, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) published its final response to the European Commission’s Call for Advice on the review of the IORP Directive 2003//41/EC, now commonly known as ‘Solvency II on pensions’.
Much of the subsequent debate revolves around a possible increase in pensions funding and compliance costs - for defined…
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Barrie & Hibbert in the press: ifaonline, Risk.net, and the Actuary
Posted on 08-07-2011 | 0 comments
How to use Barrie & Hibbert's retirement tool
ifaonline.co.uk
"John Higgins and David Campbell believe the at- retirement space is currently underserved by financial planning tools. Advisers are provided with plenty of options for which…
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Yield Curve Extrapolation: Longest reliable point
Posted on 19-04-2011 by John Hibbert | 0 comments
It is profoundly worrying that the most basic valuation question we might ask of an insurer -- what is the value today of a fixed liability cash flow at some future date?-- is still unanswered less than two years ahead of Solvency II implementation.
Policymakers, regulators, firms, actuaries and accountants have belatedly focussed on a number of difficult questions including the…
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The path really matters – Part II
Posted on 02-03-2011 by John Hibbert | 0 comments
This is a continuation of Part I
Consider (again) savings accumulation over a long horizon – 30 years – where we assume an individual saves €1000 each month. Now, let’s assume that we have a fixed set of returns available for the 30 years. The returns have an (arithmetic) average…
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The path really matters – Part I
Posted on 18-02-2011 by John Hibbert | 0 comments
Suppose you set out to accumulate savings over a long horizon – 30 years – and set aside €1000 each month. Now take a look at the two return paths shown in the chart below for a unit of investment over such a period. The upper (green) path generates a cumulative return of just over 6% per annum while the lower (red) path delivers a little less than 4%. Which would you prefer?
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Confessions of an investment banker
Posted on 06-07-2010 by Andrew Barrie | 0 comments
I was an investment banker.
There we have it. Outed. Confessed. General applause please – it’s all part of my rehabilitation.
I will always be an ex-investment banker. I may choose to omit it from my CV, but it will be there: part of me, hidden, shameful.
Of course, I didn’t think of myself as one. I’ve never ever called myself one. Nobody who really…
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Too dominant in the ESG space?
Posted on 26-08-2009 by John Hibbert | 0 comments
We are sometimes asked to comment on the claim that we are just "too dominant in the ESG space". Notably, European insurance regulators raise the issue deep in the 'white text' of their July 2009 Consultation Paper #56 on…
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Yield Curve Extrapolation Webinar
Posted on 18-06-2009 by John Hibbert | 0 comments
We are always keen to share our latest thinking with our clients. As our client base has grown over the past few years it has become less practical to meet everyone face-to-face to share our thoughts and analysis. Fortunately the internet provides a medium for us to connect with clients all over the world and so we decided to experiment with running webinars to share our thinking.
The choice…
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So is there really a case for the in-house ESG model?
Posted on 15-04-2009 by John Hibbert | 0 comments
One of our perennial conversations with prospective clients is the buy-vs-build discussion. Solvency II will bring an increased focus on internal models and some will make the mistake that this means they need to build models in-house. Internal in this context refers to the use of models and not where they are built.
Using models internally means understanding them, their limitations and…
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