Actuarial services

Major regulatory change, ongoing economic uncertainty, technology-driven turbulence and increasing consumer expectations are challenges that offer the key to profitability for insurers who make the right strategic, investment and operational changes. We can help you make informed decisions in this transformative age.

The team

Katrien De Cauwer

Katrien De Cauwer

EY Belgium Financial Services Actuarial, CFO Consulting and Sustainable Finance Leader

What EY can do for you

Our work is grounded in an extensive understanding of the financial dynamics of businesses. We develop services to address the most common issues companies similar to yours ask us to solve.

Our extensive global knowledge comes from our work with insurance companies, banks, pension funds, private equity firms, sovereign funds and local regulators. We stay out in front of the challenges the industry faces – so you can, too.

Our services

We provide truly integrated services across all disciplines in the insurance industry. These include:

Insurance

EY Financial Services: our actuaries at the heart of the Insurance industry’s transformation

With the market undergoing significant changes, the insurance industry is at a turning point. Not only is it facing a regulatory tsunami and continues to be faced with historically low interest rates, it is now being challenged on a very different battle field: that of new technologies and their impact on all aspects of the business. From vague futuristic concepts, digital transformation and innovation have become very real forces, reshaping insurances companies’ agenda at a speed never seen before.

But in each challenge lies an opportunity. While new technologies are at the source of all these issues, they are also the key to making the most of these exciting new times.

As a global player, EY has the multi-skilled resources capable to act at each step of the insurance value chain. Among our insurance specialists is our team of actuaries, supporting you in many areas of your business: Pricing and Product Development, Claims Management and Reserving, Actuarial Support, IFRS 17 & Solvency II. Whatever your need is, you can count on our Belgian team and our wide EMEIA network to fulfill it.

  • Pricing and product development

    Pricing and product development requires a deep understanding of customer needs, of the market conditions and of the data to be used to perform the pricing assessment.
    We offer you a broad range of Advisory services in this area and combine our actuarial expertise with the skills and experience of our colleagues. Our Digital & Customer team will help you define your customers' journey while our Data and Analytics colleagues will offer data science or machine learning guidance. And that’s just to name a few…

    • Product innovation
    • Profitability studies and portfolio rationalization
    • Pricing and use of open source data
    • Pricing optimization & elasticity
    • Reinsurance optimization

  • Claims Management & Reserving

    Our mission is to support you in assessing and improving the whole claims management chain. Leveraging on today's advanced modeling methods, we are able to derive a large set of insights from the claims data. This allows for an increased efficiency and effectiveness of the claims handlers, an improved claims triage process, an earlier identification of errors and fraud and an accuracy assessment of the case reserves. On top of this, we help you with your liability modeling, for both life and non-life, under Belgian GAAP, Solvency II and IFRS.

    • Reserving and cash-flow modeling
    • Technical provisions review
    • Claims management efficiency

  • Actuarial Support

    Insurance companies deal with a tsunami of regulatory requirements which are increasingly complex and require specialized skills.

    Moreover, as an insurance company, you are bound by the Solvency II regulation to put in place several independent control functions. The Actuarial Function is one of them. As a second line of defense, its role consists in providing the management with the necessary assurance about the quality of actuarial computations related to Technical Provisions as well as the underlying methods and assumptions.

    • In-house actuarial support
    • Actuarial function

  • IFRS 17

    IFRS 17 represents a complete overhaul of accounting for insurance contracts. The change will be significant for nearly all insurers and will affect both preparers and users of financial statements. Implementing this standard will impact the entire Finance operating model and will require a close collaboration between Finance, Actuarial and IT teams. People, processes and systems will be refreshed, and CFOs will assess the strategic impacts of the new reporting framework.

    • IFRS 17 gap analysis
    • IFRS 17 financial impact assessment
    • IFRS 17 valuation methodology design & implementation

  • Solvency II

    The Solvency II regulation represents a major challenge for insurance companies.
    At EY, we have made the most of our experience in Solvency II implementation to develop the tools and methods required to support you.

    • Pillar 1 optimization
    • Pillar 2 – Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA)
    • Pillar 3
    • Model validation

  • Knowledge Support and Training

    Regulatory changes have become the new normal. Keeping up to speed with the latest changes is challenging and demanding in terms of time and effort. Thanks to our strong international network, we help you overcome these challenges by providing you with a wide range of experts who will bring the necessary knowledge to help you reach your goal. 

Pension & retirement

The Belgian pension landscape is under constant evolution.

Our Pensions & Retirement team helps you with the social & legal dimensions as well as remuneration strategy, fiscal regulations and financial aspects. As these matters are handled by a variety of key stakeholders in each company (Human Resources as well as Finance and Accounting departments), vision and perspectives might differ.

Trends are evolving and the current financial market situation has undergone major changes in the last few years. Workforce expectations and experience now drive the research of new solutions: optimizing the pension benefits you offer will increase the return of your pension plan investment in terms of employee experience as well from your employer perspective.

With EY Actuarial Services as your Pensions partner, you can count on on-demand as well as proactive support on actuarial employee benefit matters, more precisely pensions.

As part of a global organization, we have connections all over Europe and worldwide, allowing us to leverage on our actuarial network.

We can achieve together:

  • Active partnership with your HR and Finance stakeholders
  • Clear view on the quantitative and qualitative key factors
  • Support with your the overall employee benefit strategy
  • Quality Audit support

  • Financial Advice

    Pensions used to be mainly a Human Resources matter. Yet, since 2016 and the drop in interest rates, Belgian pension plans have become a topic of discussion with your Finance department, and Accounting colleagues.

    EY will assist you to answer any financial question related to the pensions and other long-term benefits (including termination benefits).

    • Optimizing your Return on Investment
    • Accounting actuary
    • Pension & Retirement dashboard
    • Pension Due Diligence 

  • Group Insurance

    For the past 14 years, the Belgian legislator has been looking to increase the 2nd pillar pension coverage amongst the Belgian workforce.


    As an employer offering a retirement coverage, it is your responsibility to finance the benefit appropriately. However, with the decrease in interest rates on the financial market, as well as the decrease of the interest rates granted on your group insurance contracts, this is becoming increasingly challenging. Companies are thus seeking return on investment. Unfortunately, though, increased return usually comes with increased risks. Defining your funding and financial strategy and how to monitor it is thus key.


    We assist you in staying in control of your risks and support you in translating your company values and financial strategy into policies and guidelines for your pension financing vehicle to follow.

    • Consulting actuary for collective financing vehicle
    • Funding & financing

  • Pension Plan Design

    Providing a pension coverage to your employees has become a must. Not only does it remain fiscally attractive, it has become an integrated part of a remuneration package.

    The 1st pillar state pension is predicted to face financial difficulties. Guaranteeing your employees a well-thought retirement coverage provides them with comfort and security.
    We can assist you with the design phase, the implementation and the business as usual processes (such as the financial analysis, the proactive thinking of legislative changes, the financing options and the communication package).

    • Implementation
    • Harmonization
    • Transformation

  • Legislative Support

    The pension legislation is in constant evolution: between the transposition of the EU Portability Directive, the approaching end of the standstill period for harmonization of the blue and white collars status, the introduction of the voluntary supplementary pension for employees and the implementation of IORP II, employers have some pension work on their agenda.

    • Impact assessment
    • Solution implementation

  • IBP Instelling voor bedrijfspensioenvoorziening / IRP Institution de retraite professionnelle

    The enforcement of the IORP II directive in the Belgian legislation (WIBP/ LIRP), strengthening the landscape of the governance and policies, redefining the role and interactions of the key functions with the Board of Directors and between each other, initiating the risk management framework and the ORA, are a new challenges for pension funds.

    We can assist you in the different aspects of your pension fund 

    • Actuarial function
    • Risk Management function
    • Own Risk Assessment
    • Transparency and benefit statement
    • Workshop and training

  • Public Sector

    The March 30th legislation, applicable to the local and provincial public entities, has initiated a financial link between the 1st pillar pension of the civil servants and the 2nd pillar pension plan covering the employees. Indeed, the accountability contribution can be reduced by 50% of the retirement premiums paid for the employees as from January 1st, 2020 if the pension plan(s) covering the employee comply(ies) with the qualitative and quantitative criteria listed in the Law. If these criteria are not met and thus if an entity cannot deduct the 2nd pillar retirement premiums, it might face financial penalties to the maximum of its total pension charges. This new Law can potentially have significant impacts for you.

    We propose our services for:

    • Impact assessment
    • Actuarial study
    • Pension provider selection

  • Communications

    Clear communication with your workforce brings added value such as confidence, understanding and inclusiveness. It allows them to not only value the benefits you finance but makes them feel supported, increasing their dedication and your retention.
    Communication around pensions, however, is not easy. The content of the annual benefit statement, while important to your employees, might not be difficult to apprehend.
    How you would bring value, together with the necessary information, to your workforce? EY Actuarial Services will be your partner on this journey by supporting you in:

    • Intranet support
    • Enhancing your workers' experience (Annual Benefit Statement enhanced solutions)
    • Bringing innovative solutions 

  • Teaming

    Some cases and periods of intense workload might require you to reinforce your team. No matter the project or circumstances, we have the right skills and mindset to team up with your experts.

    • In-house actuarial support
    • Corporate support

Who we are

The Consulting team is a diverse network of consultants and industry professionals with a global mindset and a collaborative culture. We work to understand your issues and are driven to ask better questions in the pursuit of making your business work better. Contact one of our Consulting professionals today to see how we can help you.

Contact us

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