Demographic Horizons

Meet the team

Demographic Horizons is a specialist team within Aon’s UK Risk and Modelling group. It comprises around 30 members in offices across the UK and is supported by teams in India and Poland.

Demographic Horizons teams also operate in the Netherlands, Canada and the USA, utilising the same tools and models developed in the UK.

 

Matt Fletcher - Associate Partner

Matt is an Associate Partner and a senior member of the Demographic Horizons team, providing advice on longevity and other demographics to pension schemes, insurers and reinsurers. He is Aon’s expert on drivers of mortality change including international mortality trends, causes of death and COVID-19.

Matt is the current chair of the IFoA’s Mortality and Morbidity Research Committee, and previously chaired the CMI SAPS Committee, which produces the standard pension scheme mortality tables for the UK actuarial profession. He was also a member of the profession’s COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group, which has produced over 100 bulletins and other publications over the course of the pandemic, work which was discussed at SAGE and cited by the highest levels of Government.

Matt has over 20 years’ experience in pensions and insurance consultancy, and has specialised in longevity for over 15 years. He joined Aon in early 2016.

[email protected]
+44(0)1727 888208

 

Miles Blackford - Associate Partner

Miles is a tooling, modelling and longevity specialist and has worked full time in Aon’s Demographic Horizons team since 2008.

Miles is lead developer for our next-generation of tools, Demographic Horizons™ Studio, which enable our clients to access the same functionality through the web as we can internally.

Miles also built many of the suite of tools used by our 30-person longevity support team. These tools – written in C# and Excel / VBA – streamline the process for our standard jobs and reduce risks through various controls built into the tools and processes.

Miles was key to the development and calibration of our postcode-based mortality models for the UK, the Netherlands and Canada, and now leads the team’s continued investment in this area.

[email protected]
+44(0)1727 888679

 

Richard Thornley - Associate Partner

Richard has over 20 years of experience advising trustees, companies and (re)insurers on a wide range of pension risk management issues and now specialises in providing advice on demographic risks.

Richard played a key role in the development of Aon’s market-leading Demographic Horizons dependants model and now leads in this area, including:

• research and modelling framework
• survey and tracing data interpretation and advice
• online tool development

More widely, Richard has advised on a range of demographic areas, including:

• longevity transaction pricing and cashflow model development
• COVID-19 impact analysis
• implications of anti-selection in member options for deferred members

[email protected]
+44(0)161 687 2477

 

David Barnard - Senior Consultant & Operations Lead

David is a Senior Consultant and the Operations Lead of the Demographic Horizons team, overseeing the process and delivery of technical consulting advice to pension schemes, life insurers and reinsurers both in the UK and overseas. David is responsible for the team’s main processes, resource, development and training across multiple offices.

David is also involved in a large number of client projects, including advice on the pricing basis for a €13 billion pension portfolio. David also manages Aon’s marital tracing process which supports a wide selection of risk settlement projects and wrote the scheme-specific mortality improvement component used by Aon to advise on mortality assumptions.

David joined Aon in 2008, spending time in Aon’s Trustee Retirement Consulting team prior to joining the Demographic Horizons team. David also volunteers as a mentor in Aon’s mentoring programme.

[email protected],
+44(0)20 7086 9015

 

Jamil Merali - Associate Partner

Jamil is a Member Options and Risk Settlement expert – advising both corporates and trustees on projects such bulk transfer exercises, pension increase exercises and bulk annuities. He has a focus on supporting clients through the journey to settlement; making it as smooth possible (from a financing and governance point of view) and considering members along the way.

Jamil has been able to use his combined member options and risk settlement experience in advising insurers and re-insurers to set their pricing basis in connection with deferred and pensioner optionality and considering selection risk of such options.

Jamil has 20 years’ experience in the pensions industry – spending time in Aon’s Corporate Consulting team, being a member of the UK Retirement Leadership Team and part of Aon’s first UK Regional Inclusion & Diversity Council.

[email protected],
+44(0)207 086 9201