Of no fixed abode - PART V: Looking to the future

Recurring themes at the Insurance Investment Exchange seminars, focused on education and the need to create an appropriate organisational culture through dialogue and the sharing of ideas, remain as strong as ever.Recurring themes at the Insurance Investment Exchange seminars to date, have been the focus on education and the need to create an appropriate organisational culture through dialogue and the sharing of ideas remains as strong as ever. Expertise is also growing, with credible new providers and solutions coming onto the market focused on alternatives and efficient structuring. What the final landscape looks like is yet to be determined but the signs of movement and growing engagement are encouraging. We also should not forget the bigger picture. Given the quantum of assets in fixed income, traditional fixed income will still be the dominant portion of many portfolios even after all these changes. Understanding how to manage it, mitigate its risks and evolve it alongside a changing wider framework is also critical. At some point, the pendulum will swing again. We ignore it at our peril. Coupled with the nature of liabilities, this also means that insurers will continue to be highly exposed to the uncertainties of policymakers and their impact on yield, inflation and credit curves. The changes to annuities and the fresh challenges created, as well as the debate surrounding the timing of rate rises, are but two recent examples. At the same time, some of the new risks acquired are political, geopolitical, regulatory and so on, depending on the asset class – as some in infrastructure have already learnt. Macro matters like never before. The journey ahead is uncertain but the light is also getting clearer. And if we can talk, share and learn from each other along the way, it will seem all the shorter and more rewarding.