The Investment and Life Assurance Group Limited (ILAG) is a representative trade association which acts as a forum for the financial services industry, focusing on insurance, pensions, and investments. You can follow us on LinkedIn.

Working with our membership, we seek to:

• Engage and build relationships with regulatory, government and industry bodies
• Promote understanding of the regulatory, legislative and market environment
• Provide a vehicle for members to exchange views and information
• Facilitate the development of best practice

Our objectives are:

• To be a positive influencing force within the Industry and with regulators and government, giving trusted advice and guidance from the practitioner point of view
• To provide regular forums for education, discussion, and exchange of views across the membership
• To provide a space for members to share issues and concerns, so we can facilitate representations and consultation responses.

Our activities

We offer a busy programme of seminars, workshops and forums and facilitates discussion groups, and roundtables. These are free to attend and are run exclusively for our membership. We attract high quality speakers from government, regulators, industry bodies, and practitioners.

We are proud of our practitioner focus and the technical work carried out within our groups and recognise the positive value of diversity by promoting equality and challenging discrimination.

Digital, Technology & Innovation: Examines developments in, and innovative uses of, information and mobile technologies and looks at legislation and regulation regarding the use of technology.

Distribution: Explores all aspects of distribution within the UK, including initiatives designed to create standards in distribution activity or practices, and legislation and regulation across all channels. A key area of interest is Advice and Information Models.

Financial Crime: Discusses all matters related to financial crime, anti-money laundering processes and cyber-crime. A key area of interest is intelligence sharing.

Financial Reporting: Reviews the standards, developments in, and business implications of, financial reporting. A key area of interest is IFRS 17.

Pension Technical: Reviews pension-related developments, including emerging legislation, regulation and social and economic issues affecting pension provision. A key area of interest is the development of pension dashboards.

Protection: The Protection Practitioner Group focuses on matters relating to protection products, including health insurance. As well as regulatory issues, access to insurance, and questions of public perception, the Group also addresses genetic and medical advancements and patterns of mortality and morbidity.

Prudential Regulation: Considers the developments and trends in prudential regulation, monitoring, and formulating responses to related consultations, and liaising with the PRA.

Regulation (UK & EU): Focuses on proposed changes to regulation with particular emphasis on UK and EU regulatory publications and changes to practices within UK and EU regulatory authorities. Key areas of interest are vulnerable customers and duty of care.

Risk Management: Considers the implications of changes, economic conditions and external environmental issues on firm’s risk policies and enterprise risk management frameworks. A key area of interest is climate change and the associated financial risks.

Tax: Addresses all UK tax matters with HMRC and other relevant bodies, follows financial reporting developments, and provides technical support to the ILAG membership. Current key areas of interest are IFRS 17 and Making Tax Digital for Corporation Tax.

Workplace - Protection, Health & Wellbeing: Considers the implications of future innovative, legislative, and regulatory developments relating to protection, and health and wellbeing benefits within the workplace. A key area of interest is the provision of employee support services.

Strategic Themes Oversight: The Strategic Themes Oversight Group (formerly the Wealth Management Strategy Group) reviews the strategic implications of political, economic, and technological changes affecting personal wealth at all stages of the financial lifecycle.

The group helps the ILAG community to understand key industry developments and implement initiatives that may affect their business and company strategy.

Non-Executive Directors: Responsible for planning and arranging member output targeted at the NEDs of member firms, aspiring NEDs, company secretaries, and other personnel with responsibilities for advising NEDs.

Once signed up, you’ll receive regular communications, on a wide variety of industry issues and developments as well as information about participate in our activities.

Our People

We’ve been operating a cross-country virtual office since 2000 with a multi-talented Management Team that drives the work we do; taking the inputs from our groups and the feedback of our membership to design and implement a varied and highly regarded programme of activity. Meet our Team.

We appointed a new Board in February 2024 that has a more focused approach to our oversight and governance. The Board comprises experienced individuals from within our membership.

• As Board Chair, Peter Hamilton’s deep leadership experience steers the Board as it concentrates on strategy and governance.
• Elizabeth Chapman has extensive financial services experience and specialises in governance and oversight - Elizabeth focuses on our Operations helping us shape our processes, performance, and culture to achieve our strategic goals.
• Scott McKenna is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, and he leverages his analytical expertise to bring his financial acumen and governance insights to the Board as he focuses on our financial management.
• Setul Mehta provides us with insight into the industry to enable us to better understand the external environment. Setul has over 20 years of expertise across protection, mortgages, investments, and operations driving collaborative growth to improve customer outcomes.
• Michael Ruck's work in investigations and enforcement and broad range of experience with regulatory liaison and in large-scale, complex multijurisdictional investigations will help us develop our targeted regulatory and government relationships.
• Tim Smith draws on his wide insight into the opportunities, challenges, and trends within the industry to support us in delivering value. He focuses on our ongoing strategy work and oversees our marketing activity, to ensure these are tailored to the needs of the membership.
• Jo Stickland leads the organisation while working with the other directors to bring the Board's strategic vision to reality.

Our history

The Investment & Life Assurance Group (ILAG) was formed in 1972 under the name - Linked Life Assurance Group, and we initially focused on unit-linked matters.

By 1994 the interests of members had diversified leading to its evolution to the Investment and Life Assurance Group, ILAG and in 2008, ILAG became a company limited by guarantee, ILAG Limited.

We now welcome membership from across the life assurance and pensions, and investment industries.