Next Level
Characters:
Paul: A Scheme Actuary who is eager to boost his career and take on some large important clients
Margaret: An Actuary and Paul’s boss – she’s focussed on getting a seat on the ‘Us Group’ board.
Joe: An Actuary and Paul’s friend and colleague.
Naz: Paul’s partner (only heard from off-screen)
Synopsis:
This scene is based on a pitch for a new scheme actuary appointment but concerns about the possible perception of lack of independence/cross-selling of other services.
Paul’s boss tells him that he's been chosen to pitch for a new scheme actuary appointment. He has a few small scheme appointments but this new one would be a big scheme of a large company, which is obviously very exciting. In doing his research Paul finds that a new independent trustee was appointed a few months back who is employed by a separate Trustee company within his employer's group. He looks at the client list of his employer and finds that for over half the scheme actuary appointments his employer's Trustee arm are the independent trustee. He is concerned about the possible perception of lack of independence this could cause and speaks to his boss. His boss tells him not to concern himself and that "there's no need to rock the boat"!
Discussion points:
- How do you measure “independence” within a corporate setting and, irrespective of how we consider our corporate independence, at what point might the public perception consider impartiality to have been lost?
- Paul identified that over half of their scheme actuary appointments came from cases where TrustUs are the independent trustee. Is this too high from the actuarial perspective and would the degree of conflict be the same if it was perhaps for an investment advisor?
- Should Paul be concerned about his level of experience? Should he raise his concerns with his line manager?
- Are there any aspects of how actuarial employers act that might affect the individual actuary’s independence?