The UK life insurance sector’s solvency ratios are currently at a record high, according to Fitch Ratings.

Sam Woods, chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, attempted to put the tense and sometimes fractious debate about post-Brexit reforms to Solvency II to bed with a conciliatory speech on the eve of this week’s Association of British Insurers' annual conference.

The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee has criticised the use of leveraged liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies by defined benefit pension funds, which played a significant role in the financial turmoil following Liz Truss’s and Kwasi Kwarteng’s calamitous mini budget last September.

As the long, grey month of January shuffles to its conclusion, clarity gradually begins to emerge on prospects for the year. When it comes to insurer investment strategies, caution reigns, writes Contributing Editor David Worsfold.

We are taking a deep dive into the way insurers’ investment teams are responding to the demand to develop and refine ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) strategies with some trenchant views from Erik Vynckier.

This time last year, predictions of what 2022 might hold in store were laced with fervent hopes that we were on a return path to normality. Instead, we were hurled through a year of disruption unparalleled in modern times.