Trustees are now faced with two particularly difficult choices, as our Dutch colleagues say “De keuze tussen twee kwaden”, which loosely translates to having to choose between two evils. In order to keep targeting the same return post-LDI crisis, schemes will either need to:

• Accept a lower liability hedge, leading to higher investment risk; or 
• Allocate more to LDI to retain their previous level of hedging, but lose portfolio diversification, in turn leading to higher investment risk.

Higher risk, for no additional return, is an inherently unappealing choice. Such a market shift should lead to trustees reconsidering their investment approach.

This choice extends beyond a simple overall portfolio consideration and should delve into other questions including how much complexity is enough, and do alternatives still have a place in portfolios?

Insurance LinkedIn Strategies can be used to generate returns that are not correlated with traditional asset classes, and help diversify a pension fund’s portfolio whilst reducing overall risk. Whilst they carry their own risks not found through other types of investments and can be complex, ILS can also provider society with social resilience, including from meteorological and climate events.

In this session, Leadenhall Capital Partners LLP will:

• Describe the drivers of Insurance Linked Strategies
• Uncover the potential for pension funds to enhance expected returns whilst diversifying risk
• Outline how ILS provides societies with social resilience
  

The Regulator plans to lay the final version of the DB Funding Code to Parliament in June 2023. With predictions of the new regime coming into effect in October 2023, DB schemes are scrambling together the early plans to be compliant with the latest piece of regulation.

In this session, we will discuss:

• The expectations set by the Regulator
• The key elements of the “FIS” and the “Statement”
• Assessing the employer covenant
• Determining recovery plans
  

Check back later to see more about this session.

BT Pension Scheme made investments to transform our member services area. By doing so, they increased their member satisfaction exponentially with a number of bold decisions including, insourcing the administration, repatriating the call centre and introducing a new member portal and website. With over 100,000 members registered for online pension management, join this session to hear from Andy Whitelaw, Head of Admin Strategy, to learn exactly how they did it.