IFRS17 All you need to know

About Us

Pre-emptive

We believe that one can pre-empt
a future outcome by utilising
a system of proven techniques
and a team of experts who specialise
in the science of uncertainty.

 

Precise

We exact, accurate, correct,
error-free, specific, detailed,
unambiguous, definitive, particular,
rigorous, strict, and methodical.
Actuarial science is any and
all of the above.

 

Practical

We aim to provide realistic solutions
to complex problems with a long
term forward look.  

 

We have embraced New Technology and Revolutionary Concepts
Read all about us here
New technology enables actuaries to perform their services independently and offsite
  • With clients under pressure to reduce costs, leading to reduced actuarial departments.
  • Global shortage of actuaries means a new Virtual workforce of actuaries is the future of work.
 Virtual Actuary has developed a new successful concept for delivering actuarial services to clients
  • VA can match or exceed quality levels of existing consultancies without incurring costs and obligations inherent with fixed staff.
Quality assurance at the forefront of priorities
  • Operational team responsible for diligent scoping of projects and matching best staff to client requirements.
  • Strict and controlled peer review system.
  • Staff leverage a global knowledge and experience base for support.
  • Seasoned project and delivery managers put in place where required.
  • Monthly feedback sessions with clients by directors.
Disrupting the Market
  • Scalable network of actuaries – Senior actuaries in the VA system leverage the use of other junior actuaries.
  • In-Depth Industry experience.
  • Lean business model – Using programs like Zoom and Slack our actuaries are able to consult digitally.
  • Lower charge to global clients, higher fees to Virtual Actuaries – No expensive offices and over 82% of the client fee going to the actuaries .
VA builds its initial success on a unique ability to attract both client business and actuarial talent
  • Clients know VA partners as highly skilled and trustworthy.
  • Actuarial talent know VA from long term relationships built over 10 years.
Actuarial industry has traditionally been slow to change
  • In-house actuaries utilising legacy systems which are slow and cumbersome.
  • Traditional consulting businesses with high earning partners at the top and lower level actuaries working long hours.
Due to low-cost base
  • VA can offer its actuaries increased flexibility and higher remuneration for their services.

IFRS17

Here you will find all the latest news and info regarding IFRS17.

IFRS17 policy and methodology
  • We can provide a list of IFRS17 policy and methodology choices that you have to make
  • Drafting of P&M papers
  • P&M investigations and Impact assessment of various P&M choices
IFRS17 architectural design and business requirements
  • Identifying new components required
  • Identifying existing components that can be leveraged
  • Drafting a target operating model under the new IFRS17 environment
    IFRS17 vendor assessments
    • Assisting with drafting requests for proposals to IFRS17 vendors
    • Summarising the architectural components offered by various vendors from vendor proposals
    • Proposing combinations of components from various vendors that will fill the gaps in your current systems architecture

    IFRS17 vendor implementation (configuration and validation)

    • Assisting with understanding data input requirements
    • Assisting with the initial transformation of data to vendor input requirements
    • Assisting with configuration of the system
    • Drafting testing strategies for user acceptance testing
    • Hands-on help with automating the functional testing process
      IFRS17 Software - Data - Models

      IFRS17 data transformations & ETL automation

      • Building robust data staging platforms
      • Assisting with establishing the logic required to transform company data to vendor specific input formats
      • Automating data transformations with the latest software on the market

      IFRS17 CSM prototype model builds

      • We offer ready to use CSM prototype models
      • We can also assist with building CSM prototype models
      • We can assist with leveraging current models you have internally to develop your own CSM prototype models

      IFRS17 transition software (to automate transition calculations)

      • Assistance with developing a transition strategy
      • Assistance with managing the data required for transition calculations
      • We provide ready to use software which can automate the IFRS17 roll-forward calculations from inception to transition date

      International IFRS17 implementation status update

      How far are insurers with their IFRS17 implementation journeys? The past three years have been filled with IFRS17 implementation activities and I think it’s safe to say most of us have been involved with one-of-a-kind and exciting projects. This, I believe, is...

      Why are we implementing IFRS17 again?

      The main reason for implementing IFRS17   Going through the process of implementing IFRS17 one quickly realises the vast impact this standard has on an insurer. It’s probably one of the most costly standards ever to be implemented by insurance companies. One...

      Sells Actuarial Services to Corporate & Financial Clients

      Sells actuarial services to corporate & Financial clients

      Clients who wish to outsource peaks in their work rather than hire staff internally incurring costs, risks and obligations

      Working with clients to define scope, skill requirements, timing and projects deliverables

      Settings up contracts, admin side and operational

      Years of Experience

      YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

      Virtual Actuaries for the most part are previous Big 4 consulting actuaries having worked at multiple clients and across various sectors. Their experience is extensive and thorough.

      Consulting to Clients Digitally and Efficiently

      Virtual Actuaries for the most part are previous Big 4 consulting actuaries having worked at multiple clients and across various sectors. Their experience is extensive and thorough.

      Consulting to clients digitally and efficiently

      Utilising programs like Zoom to consult digitally with clients enables video conferencing and shared screens

      Programs like Slack enable the teams to interact together in a team environment

      Technological solutions such as encryption services enable remote digital consulting

      Aiming Towards Consulting in Virtual Reality

      In time all the Virtual Actuaries will consult in Virtual or Augmented Reality from home

      Client presentations and feed back sessions will also happen in VR or AR

      Smarter software, digital interactions and Artificial Intelligence solutions without the need for physical interaction

      10 Years of Networking with Acturies enables Scale

      7000 actuaries

      Personal contact details with a 10 year insight into skill set, working experience and building actuarial teams

      Personal relationships built on trust and respect

      Lower Operational Costs and Higher Remuneration Fees

      No expensive unnecessary offices. Shared working spaces on a pay as you use basis

      Over 82% of the client fee goes to the actuaries and consultants

      Global marketing initiatives via LinkedIn are affordable

      Senior Actuaries Leverage other Virtual Actuaries

      Independent actuaries find scalability a major hurdle

      By utilising the VA system they can maximise their skills and service multiple clients

      Junior actuaries are able to leverage the peer review system to gain experience and join larger projects

      New technology enables Actuaries to Perform their Services Independently and Offsite

      With clients under pressure to reduce costs, leading to reduced actuarial departments

      Global shortage of actuaries means a new Virtual workforce of actuaries is the future working long hours

      Services

      We are Specialists of Actuarial, Insurance & Risk, Investments and Advanced Analytics services.

       

      SERVICES IN DETAIL

      Here is a full breakdown of the areas we cover. Please click on a heading to expand.

      IFRS17

      Services we offer:

      IFRS17 policy and methodology

      • We can provide a list of IFRS17 policy and methodology choices that you have to make
      • Drafting of P&M papers
      • P&M investigations and Impact assessment of various P&M choices

      IFRS17 architectural design and business requirements

      • Identifying new components required
      • Identifying existing components that can be leveraged
      • Drafting a target operating model under the new IFRS17 environment

      IFRS17 vendor assessments

      • Assisting with drafting requests for proposals to IFRS17 vendors
      • Summarising the architectural components offered by various vendors from vendor proposals
      • Proposing combinations of components from various vendors that will fill the gaps in your current systems architecture

      IFRS17 vendor implementation (configuration and validation)

      • Assisting with understanding data input requirements
      • Assisting with the initial transformation of data to vendor input requirements
      • Assisting with configuration of the system
      • Drafting testing strategies for user acceptance testing
      • Hands-on help with automating the functional testing process

      IFRS17 data transformations & ETL automation

      • Building robust data staging platforms
      • Assisting with establishing the logic required to transform company data to vendor specific input formats
      • Automating data transformations with the latest software on the market

      IFRS17 CSM prototype model builds

      • We offer ready to use CSM prototype models
      • We can also assist with building CSM prototype models
      • We can assist with leveraging current models you have internally to develop your own CSM prototype models

      IFRS17 transition software (to automate transition calculations)

       

      • Assistance with developing a transition strategy
      • Assistance with managing the data required for transition calculations
      • We provide ready to use software which can automate the IFRS17 roll-forward calculations from inception to transition date
      NON-LIFE GENERAL INSURANCE

      Reserving, Capital modelling, Pricing, Risk management and Solvency II

      We provide a full and comprehensive service offering covering among other things:

       

       

       Reserving
      • Traditional triangulation reserving models and exposure based methods when claims experience is unreliable or inappropriate
      • Calculation of Technical Provisions for Solvency II and SAM
      • Implementation of reserving and technical provision processes in a range of platforms
      • Stochastic reserving methods including ultimate one-year reserve risk views
      • Assessment of the impact of IFRS 17

      Capital modelling

      • Stochastic and other non-stochastic capital modelling techniques
      • Calibration of premium and reserve risk models for Solvency II and SAM
      • Implementation of capital models in a range of platforms
      • Methods used in the market-leading catastrophe models
      • Methods used by proprietary Economic Scenario Generators (ESGs)
      • Capital allocation methods
      • PPO modelling methods
      • Optimization of outward reinsurance

      Pricing

      • Traditional personal and or commercial lines and London Market pricing techniques
      • Stochastic pricing methods for pricing reinsurance or complex commercial risks
      • Creation of pricing analytics for underwriters and management
      • Creation of connected pricing models online or with full database support
      • Optimisation methods for pricing and portfolio re-balancing
      • Application of machine learning techniques for pricing and portfolio segmentation

      Risk management and Solvency II / SAM

      • Design and implementation of capital model validation
      • Standard formula calculations and commonly accepted approaches
      • Solvency II legislation and Internal Model Application Process requirements
      • Lloyd’s and PRA reporting requirements such as Lloyd’s Capital Returns and Quantitative Reporting Templates
      • Construction of Solvency II and SAM documents, such as policies, frameworks, logs or reports
      • Effective communication of risk information from capital models or other risk indicators to Risk Committees and Boards
      BANKING

      The Banking team is almost ready to go to market

      We’ll be launching this team as part of Virtual Actuary very soon hopefully.
      INVESTMENTS

      Below is a list of services we can offer on the investment side:

      We have access to a variety of top actuarial investment experts and juniors, and projects we have been involved in have been far from standard; involving inter alia big data sets, unconventional assets and locum positions. We have become adept at doing the weird, messy and difficult jobs which nobody else wants.

      Locums

      • Providing experts to temporarily occupy empty positions in corporates (e.g. whilst hiring).
      • If needed, the locum may document the processes and people involved in the position, for easy transition, and permanent storage of intellectual capital.

      Unit Trusts:

      • Investigating Asset Liability Mismatches
      • Calculating per client adjustments to make to correctly compensate for historical transactional errors, and unit pricing errors.  We are experienced at working with big datasets.
      • Setting fees, setting up funds[1]
      • Managing co-naming / co-branding / white labelled agreements
      • Engaging FSCA regarding the regulatory environment
      • Platform management & improvement[2]
      • Assessing & improving overall fund offering[3]

      Fee Disclosures:

      • Disclosure: Calculating TERs and transitions costs

      Market Research:

      • For new and existing investment fields
      • Setting up capabilities for new investment fields

      Liability Driven Investments

      • Market Research
      • Proposing, building and Reviewing models
      • Marketing & sales advice

      Alternative Investments

      Future Studies

      Peer reviews

      Complex calculations

      Transition Management

       

      [1] FSCA actions, administrators, determining launch TER, … [2] For example, IT interface, fund fact sheets, member queries, graphing and other displays, etc [3] For example, the Mandate

      LIFE INSURANCE

      Individual and Group Life

      We provide a full and comprehensive service offering covering among other things:

      Product Development:

      Product Development of new innovative products.

      Product knowledge for the following countries: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa

      Products include: Group and Individual for Life and Funeral cover, Credit Life cover, Pension Fund investment, Disability, PHI, Dread Disease & other riders, Micro insurance and mobile solutions providers, health insurance.

      Financial Reporting:

      Valuations including statutory valuation responsibility for life assurer, reinsurer, friendly society, cell captive or start-up insurers

      SAM / Solvency II implementation and review

      • Solvency Capital Requirement
      • Internal model
      • Own Risk Solvency Assessment

      Embedded value calculations

      IFRS17 formulation, preparation and implementation

      • Policy and methodology
      • Architectural design and business requirements
      • Vendor assessments
      • Vendor implementation (configuration and validation)
      • Data transformations & ETL automation
      • CSM prototype model builds
      • Transition software (to automate transition calculations)

      Reinsurance:

      Advising and implementing reinsurance arrangements to enable efficient capital management

      Risk and capital management:

      Asset liability modelling, liquidity and market risk management

      Economic Capital Modelling and Risk Capital Allocation and optimisation

      Software:

      Support in using and managing actuarial cash flow modelling systems (Prophet, MoSes, RiskAgility).

      WIDER FIELDS, TELCO AND ADVANCED ANALYTICS

      Advanced Analytics as an X factor

      At Virtual Actuary, our advanced data analytics team takes your data security extremely seriously. We use end to end encryption, secure and POPIA-compliant storage facilities; which have strict, legally enforceable privacy policies as well as secure data management policies which are resistant to social engineering. Your data will be so safe, you might want to keep it with us.

      Our philosophy with advanced data analytics is that the results must affect your bottom line. Vanity metrics and dash boards which do not engage with or enhance business decision making are, at best, a waste of your time and money. We deliver products that integrate into your business seamlessly; providing insights which positively affect either growth, revenue and/or savings. We strive for results that will become a standard part of your operations and ongoing quest for business excellence.

      A major part of advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence adoption within your business involves risk. Often, the solutions we provide have never been done before and this is the nature of innovation. As such, our risk management strategy involves high-frequency feedback (typically every week) as well as key data driven metrics which quantify the potential of the project to be a success (from a return on investment perspective) at every stage of development.

      Our team has an eclectic skill set and has experience from a wide range of industries. From cybersecurity, marketing and advertising, engineering and software development to private equity and strategy consulting. We offer a mature, fully-featured, and extremely technically skilled service. We have developed algorithms that optimise advertising spend and customer lead acquisition, we have engineered automatic pricing systems, we can infer proprietary information using only publicly available data and have expertise in automatic fraud detection methods.

      Our goal is to assist you with your journey through the 21st century’s industrial revolution and to partner with you in delivering world-class value to your customers and shareholders.

      We are proud to design and implement financially and ethically responsible artificial intelligence products.

      HEALTHCARE

      Healthcare

      We would be delighted to discuss any of following:
      • Estimation of IBNR (Incurred but not reported) Claim Liabilities, loss ratio and claims utilisation studies, reserving and modelling
      • Assisting, refining and developing pricing methodology and best practices and assessing impact studies, processes for in-force business including experience analysis
      • Various experience formulas and applications including determining appropriate stop loss rates, demographic and claims experience
      • Forecasting of future premium claims based on various deductibles, environmental changes, regulatory changes, new or generic drug availability, new available procedures as well as risk adjustment enhancements
      • Creating of various models taking into account trends, payment levels and selection issues, advice on amendments to regulations and legislation
      • Post- Retirement Medical Aid Valuations: Performing entire valuations process from start to finish, including data requests, calculations, checking and drafting of the valuation report
      • Working with underwriters and various business units to apply models specific to groups
      • Working with business units to determine where new business rate levels should be set, and which renewal increases roll over from existing arrangements
      • Development of a range of risk management and managed care programs to drive claim cost down and improve healthcare outcomes for patients
      • Redesigning and costing of service provider tariffs or reimbursement models
      • Developing dynamic activity-based costing and demand models
      • Interacting on all Health Reinsurance matters including risk sharing arrangements

      OUR TEAM OF GLOBAL ACTUARIES
      ARE READY TO BECOME YOUR
      ACTUARIAL RESOURCE

      Our Team

      Our team of experts offers a comprehensive range of actuarial services founded on a depth of experience acquired locally and globally.

      Johan Vrolijk
      Co-CEO
      “I do actuarial stuff.”

      Jacques Naude
      Principal Data Scientist
      “I’ll help you get the data to make sense.”

      Pierre Chandre Pelser
      Life and Big Data Actuary – Manager
      “Being an actuary is a privilege. I want to make a difference in the lives of South Africans.”

      Andrew Sharpe
      Global head of Life, Reinsurance and ERM
      “Let’s really talk about Enterprise Risk, Solvency and other fun related topics.”

      Andre Erasmus
      IFRS17 Implementation
      “Passionate about IFRS17 and getting you over the line before 2023!”

      Rob Baker
      Overseeing Investment
      Team
      “A seasoned Investment professional who enjoys the challenge in everything he does.”

      Jessica Blignaut
      Quants and Risk Analyst
      “Each assignment will impact so many people’s lives, how amazing is that!”

      Theunis Johann Van  Rooyen
      Life and Big Data Manager and Mentor
      “Actuaries consulting virtually makes perfect sense to me.”

      Thinus van der Merwe
      Life Product Design and Pricing Manager
      “Achieving a structured solution which makes company and client happy, is the goal.”

      AN AWARD WINNING CONSULTANCY

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