Events

The Aon Pension Conference 2020 - CANCELLED

The Aon Pension Conferences are designed for trustees of pension schemes and pensions, HR and finance professionals who make decisions about their company’s pension scheme.

Attendance is free and offers delegates the opportunity to hear experts’ views and ideas on how to manage defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes, the conference also provides a platform to learn from and network with peers.

Delegates can expect to leave with fresh actions for their pension scheme and will receive 4.5 CPD points for full day attendance.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Keeping the target in sight

We will consider the importance for members of setting and making use of targets to enable members to transition from work into retirement, including considering:

• Have DC pension members thought about how much they need to retire in the way that they want and how to get there? What can sponsors and trustees do to support them with this?
• How can we use retirement targets to improve DC scheme design? We will share our market leading thinking on the next generation of target focused DC investment strategies.

A playback of the webinar can be found here.

Trustee governance at this changing time

What changes are we expecting in governance and trusteeship over 2020 especially in the light of the Coronavirus pandemic. How is this likely to impact how you run your pension plans and what are the actions that trustees and corporates are already starting to take.

A playback of the webinar can be found here.

GMP Equalisation

The team will look at the key decisions of GMP Equalisation, how far other schemes have got and discuss the big question - is it harder or easier than expected!

A playback of the webinar can be found here

Investing for Risk Settlement

In this session we cover:

• the key principles of how a pension scheme should invest if their target is buy-out;
• when a buy-in makes sense and when it doesn’t;
• what recent market volatility means for those schemes considering buy-ins and buy-outs.

A playback of the webinar can be found here

Responsible Investment - a member's vision

In this discussion and Q&A session, Aon’s experts will consider the growing demand from regulators, the industry and scheme members for more action from trustees on responsible investment and good stewardship. We will explore how trustees can respond to these new demands, and ask what opportunities this offers for engagement with members.

A playback of the webinar can be found here

Consultation on a new DB funding code

After a number of delays the consultation on the new DB funding code was launched just as a global pandemic was taking hold.

In this Q&A with the Pensions Regulator we will explore how the new funding code is expected to develop, and how plans might need to change given the fundamental changes to economic conditions since the consultation was drafted.

Live Q&A with David Fairs of The Pension Regulator

A playback of the webinar can be found here.

Economic Insights with Professor Trevor Williams

Join us for our Economic Insights webinar with guest speaker Professor Trevor Williams. The session will begin at 11:00am and run for 1 hour, made up of a 45 minute presentation by Trevor followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

During the session Trevor will be providing his thoughts on the economic impact of COVID-19, and the effects on the UK and global economy, government stimulus packages and insights on the type and length of the recession we face.

Meet our speaker

Professor Trevor Williams is the former Chief Economist at Lloyds Bank. During his time there he established a highly regarded, award winning team of economists. A visiting Professor at the University of Derby, rotating Chairman of the Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee (SMPC), Trevor now runs a consultancy specialising in economic analysis encompassing ‘big data’.

For more information or to register your interest please contact us

Impact Forecasting model roadmap and review of the year’s catastrophes

Speakers: Adam Podlaha and Steve Bowen, Impact Forecasting

The world of catastrophe modelling continues to advance at a rapid pace through scientific research, computing capabilities and new ways to quantify risk. Hear how Impact Forecasting can help you explore new opportunities including forecasting losses, the influence of climate change, streamlining catastrophe modelling processes, customization, collaboration and higher resolution modelling for peak perils.

In the second part we will focus on tropical cyclones. Do we see the return of the insurance industry’s costliest peril? After a relatively benign stretch for tropical cyclone payouts for the insurance industry, the last three calendar years resulted in a significant uptick in costly landfalls. While the U.S. has historically been the primary driver of tropical cyclone-related payouts, the 2017-2019 seasons also resulted in record payouts in other global insurance markets. This presentation will recap the tropical cyclone peril and additionally highlight recent research that may help better link the science of these storms and their damage potential.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Investment Focus – Navigating Uncharted Territory

It's fair to say the current crisis has wreaked havoc on investment markets. The S&P 500 took just 16 trading days to fall more than 20%. UK gilt yields showed bouts of unprecedented volatility, and bond markets suddenly froze. And all of this against the most disruption we have experienced in our working lifetimes as the office learned to work remotely.

Please join William Parry and specialists from our asset allocation and delegated investment teams to discuss how our investment performance and operational resilience planning have held up well, and how proud we are of the way our colleagues have all stepped up to these challenging times.

RSVP to this event here.

Automate your catastrophe modelling workflow with ELEMENTS 14

Speakers: Chris Ewing, Sarka Cerna and Ashwin Joseph, Impact Forecasting

Managing multiple catastrophe modelling, pricing and underwriting tools can be challenging and time-consuming. Impact Forecasting’s ELEMENTS catastrophe modelling platform helps companies automate regular modelling tasks and embed customization solutions within your workflows to increase efficiency and productivity. As part of our ELEMENTS 14 launch, we explore how to manage multiple large models, mine more data to better support decision making and benefit from running third party models.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Aon Community Art Awards - POSTPONED

The programme supports young artists graduating from three UK art schools - Glasgow School of Art; Leeds Arts University; and Manchester School of Art - helping them to transition from student life to the commercial art world. The programme provides workshops and mentoring for the artist for a period of one year, while their art is exhibited in Aon’s client suite in London, for clients, colleagues and around 400 visitors a day to see.

Two awards will be presented – the Artists’ Award and the Aon Colleague Award – which will be followed by an auction of the artwork, with all proceeds going to the artist.

Registration is now open, please click here for more information.

Aon Insights: How to Develop, Protect, and Secure Your IP Value with a Focus on AI, Fintech and eCommerce Sectors

2019 saw Fidelity National Information Services Inc (FIS) acquire Worldpay for US$35 billion, a US$22 billion merger of Fiserv and First Data, and Intel acquire Artificial Intelligence (AI) chipmaker Habana Labs for US$2 billion. The fields of AI, Fintech, and eCommerce have recently seen increased mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions, and the intellectual property (IP) value, which comprised of the patents, trademarks, copyrights, designs, know-how and trade secrets of acquired firms, was one of the major drivers of the deal price.

Today, some of the most significant unicorn companies in the market are Fintech, AI and eCommerce players and their innovation, IP and intangible assets represent over 75 percent of their enterprise value. Join our IP experts on Friday, 15 May who will share insights on the strategic development and valuation of IP, and outline best practices to protect the enterprise value of IP portfolios.

This webinar will focus on:

• Developing a high-quality IP portfolio for AI/Fintech/eCommerce in compliance with local regulations
• Protecting data and ownership, turning data into insights
• Commercialisation and valuation of IP portfolio for AI/Fintech/eCommerce business
• Protecting against IP infringement, and trade secret theft, particularly people turnover
• Trade secrets protection, and theft

Our speakers: Christian Gordon-Pullar (Managing Director, EMEA - Aon IP Solutions), Poh Chua (Co-Head of Asia - Aon IP Solutions), Guangjie Hopton (Co-Head of Asia - Aon IP Solutions)

Contact: For more information, contact Richard Wong at richard.kl.wong@aon.com

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Guest speaker: The climate change signal in tropical cyclones – uncertainty and risk

Speakers: Adam Sobel, Columbia University and Steve Bowen, Impact Forecasting

Climate change continues to drive many important conversations within the re/insurance industry. As we better understand how weather phenomena are being affected by increasingly evolving climate conditions, there are more questions as to how the hazard will combine with increased exposure to bring greater risk. Scientists at Columbia University will explain how climate change may impact global tropical cyclone frequency and intensity in the coming years.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Using analytics to expand the reach of private flood in the U.S.

Speakers: Will Skinner, Impact Forecasting and John Dickson, Aon Edge

Recent large scale flood events like Hurricane Harvey continue to raise the importance of flood insurance availability for U.S. homeowners and businesses. Improving analytic capabilities and new model providers are helping support the insurance industry’s growth through better flood products and risk management practices. John Dickson from Aon Edge and Will Skinner of Impact Forecasting will offer their views on the current market and showcase how Impact Forecasting’s flood solutions have helped Aon Edge set new standards for this rapidly growing industry.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Technical model showcase: US earthquake

Speakers: Farhad Sedaghati, Impact Forecasting and Yajie Lee, ImageCat, Inc.

Impact Forecasting’s U.S. earthquake model has been extensively-updated in conjunction with ImageCat, a specialist earthquake risk engineering consultancy. The model leverages the latest scientific understanding of seismic hazard as well as geotechnical and structural engineering, incorporating the impacts of ground shaking, liquefaction, and fire-following, to construct a comprehensive and robust view of earthquake risk within the contiguous U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories. This session will explore the model’s key hazard and vulnerability components as well as showcase its differentiators and uses for underwriting and pricing.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Technical model showcase: Japan typhoon

Speakers: Farhad Sedaghati, Impact Forecasting and Yajie Lee, ImageCat, Inc.

The 2018 and 2019 Northwest Pacific Typhoon seasons resulted in Japan experiencing some of the costliest typhoon-induced insured losses on record. Current estimates for Jebi, Hagibis and Faxai rank them the first, second and fourth largest storm-related catastrophic losses in Japan when compared with estimates from the General Insurance Association of Japan. In response, Impact Forecasting’s new Japan typhoon model captures lessons learned from the recent events, as well as introducing a forward looking aspect to address climate change related issues, to enhance modelling insights for insurers.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Aon’s DC & Financial Wellbeing Conference: How do you measure up? - CANCELLED

You want the best fit for your pension scheme members – and your business. But how do you compare and do you have the right measures of success?

Join us to hear some of Aon’s latest thinking as well as what others are doing across different aspects of DC pensions and Financial Wellbeing, with the all-important aim to improve outcomes.

This conference takes a truly member focussed approach and explores how we can support and influence them in making decisions to set and achieve their own retirement target based on their personal financial situation.

View the full agenda here. Register here.

Technical model showcase: India flood

Speakers: Petr Puncochar and Santhosh Dronamraju, Impact Forecasting

India is among the fastest-growing economies in the world. With the rapid growth of people and property exposed to frequent floods, India’s flood loss potential continues to rise, as was evident from the recent Kerala and Chennai floods. To enable robust quantification of the risk, Impact Forecasting has developed a probabilistic flood model for India. In this session, Impact Forecasting’s experts will discuss key model features and innovations while exploring varied use cases from underwriting to accumulation management to help re/insurers confidently expand their business in this rapidly-growing territory.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Technical model showcase: The path to a pan-Europe flood event set

Speakers: Petr Punchochar and Martin Kadlec, Impact Forecasting

This session reveals the journey to developing a pan-European flood event set by Impact Forecasting in cooperation with leading universities. We will share case studies from Hungary and Austria – a the first two models based on this technology. The session will demonstrate that a thoughtfully-defined methodology of developing a pan-European model does not need to suffer from simplification which can often be linked with similar large scale flood projects. This was a key consideration for this project as Impact Forecasting’s models have been established in the market for nearly two decades. Understanding the impact of climate change on this peril also forms an important part of our modelling approach.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Investment Focus: Climate Change

Speakers: Tim Manuel, Head of Responsible Investment plus colleagues from the Responsible Investment Team

The pressure on pension schemes to address climate change is mounting, driven by regulation as well as financial and moral imperatives. Requirements for disclosure, transparency and accountability, are increasing, and the opportunity to ‘Build Back Better’ is growing. Together with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, trustees will need to carefully navigate an increasingly complex and demanding set of investment considerations.

During this webinar we will consider the critical issue of climate change, the role pension scheme investing can play to rise to the challenge, and important steps trustees can take now to position portfolios for a better future.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Get the measure of objectives

Speakers: John Foster, Principal Consultant & Steven Leigh, Senior Consultant

Before you can understand how your scheme measures up, you have to have a set of objectives against which to measure success.

In this session we explore the strategic trends in DC pensions, what different objectives might be set by schemes to ensure they are providing good outcomes and value for members and options in terms of how they might achieve those objectives.

As part of this we will consider how schemes might factor in member's own needs and preferences.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Engagement - what's new?

Speakers: Helen Payne, Principal, Memeber Experience & Mark Carmen, Client Director, Engagement Innovations

Reflecting the hidden mindsets causing poor engagement.

Aon's recent DC survey shows that engagement with pensions remains epically low.

To uncover why this is, we need to delve behind what members really think and feel about their retirement savings, and the barriers that are preventing good decisions.

Using technology we can unlock insights into members behaviour as never before, and create new ways to tailor communications to our ever evolving audience of scheme members.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Technical model showcase: Hot and cold bites – a snapshot of our Europe atmospheric peril models

Speakers: Alexandros Georgiadis, Aidan Brocklehurst and Lukas Braun, Impact Forecasting

This session explores new model developments for European wind, hail and freeze including expansion of the severe convective storm model into the new territories and a sneak peek at the European Wind model covering storm surge. We also explore the refined European Wind vulnerability module, plus take a quick glance at the UK Freeze model. Impact Forecasting experts will discuss how these models will account for climate change for these common European perils.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

It's not all about pensions

Speakers: Karina Klimaszewski, Senior Consultant & Oliver Walker, Senior Partner

COVID 19 is causing many employees to reflect on how they manage their money, not just in terms of retirement planning, but also their short term savings, debt management and financial protection for themselves and their families. Employers are responding to this with a significant uptick in those wanting to help their employees develop healthy financial habits.

In this session we will look at how pensions fits within employees financial priorities and the tools that are available to engage employees in establishing healthy financial habits over the different stages of their career. This will include a demonstration of our new app, Well One Money, which allows employees to view their pension alongside their wider debt and savings and provides personalised coaching on some actions they could take to save money.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Responsible Investment: no longer a nice to have

Speakers: Chris Inman, Principal Consultant & Joanna Sharples, Partner

Guest Speaker: David Farrar, Climate governance and ESG – Department for Work and Pensions

The interest from DC savers in Responsible Investment has continued to snowball as has the focus from the regulator. In this discussion and Q&A session, Aon's experts will consider the growing demand from the industry and scheme members for more action from trustees on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors and good stewardship.

David Farrar from the DWP will provide further detail as to their expectation of DC schemes and trustees for the integration of ESG into investment strategies. This will be an interactive session with plenty of time for your questions.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Aon’s DC & Financial Wellbeing Conference: How do you measure up? - CANCELLED

You want the best fit for your pension scheme members – and your business. But how do you compare and do you have the right measures of success?

Join us to hear some of Aon’s latest thinking as well as what others are doing across different aspects of DC pensions and Financial Wellbeing, with the all-important aim to improve outcomes.

This conference takes a truly member focussed approach and explores how we can support and influence them in making decisions to set and achieve their own retirement target based on their personal financial situation.

View the full agenda here. Register here.

Can theory ever become practice for DC investing in the UK?

Speakers: Chris Inman, Principal Consultant & Joanna Sharples, Partner

Aon experts will question what it means to really improve member outcomes, can the theory behind innovative investment strategies work in the UK?

We will also explore how the structure of lifestyle investing and the underlying asset classes and approaches to member engagement can be improved.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.

Optimising your resources

Speakers: Tony Pugh, Head of Aon DC Solutions – EMEA & Gareth Marsh, Principal

Guest Speaker: Stephen Barnett, Director of Global Compensation - Brambles

The UK DC market is changing rapidly with increasing levels of regulation and auto enrolment leading to widespread market developments that are providing new options for employers when it comes to DC pension delivery.

The session will explore the issues that are driving employers to review their DC delivery models and share data on the expected future shape of the UK DC market.

We will also explore the main options for delegating aspects of DC delivery and how these may impact employers and members.

Registration is now open, please click here to register.