Industry Engagement

Jenny Felton led discussion on concerns raised by the ILAG membership regarding HMRC’s proposed industry-led best practice Partial Exemption Special Method (PESM) framework for the Life & Pensions sector.

Participants: ILAG and ABI membership representatives, including David Jordorson (Manager, Taxation, ABI).

Members of the ILAG Management Team joined the Income Protection Taskforce’s first meeting of the year to hear IPTF's review of recent activity and plans for supporting the Financial Inclusion Strategy.

Jo Stickland attended the FCA’s session on the gateway initiative. At the session FCA speakers presented, and took questions, on FCA growth objective, authorisations, PASS, Innovation Pathways and the ScaleUp unit, as well as collaborative work with the Office for Investment: Financial Services on global competitiveness.

FCA Speakers: Nikhil Rathi (Chief Executive), Sheree Howard (Executive Director of Authorisations and Interim Joint COO), Laura Dawes (Director of Authorisations), Dominic Cashman (Director of Authorisations), and Rahul Ahluwalia (Chief Executive, Office for Investment: Financial Services)

Kelly Cullum represented ILAG at this event. FCA examined the use of AI across financial services, discuss associated risks and opportunities, and gather industry feedback to inform its approach to safe and effective AI adoption.

FCA Speakers:  Jessica Rusu (Chief Data, Information, and Intelligence Officer), Simran Singh (AI Lab Lead), and Alex Smith (Head of Department, Cross-Cutting Policy)

Jo Stickland and Jenny Felton attended, as guests, to hear from Dan Riddle, Keep Britain Working, and for an update on the work of GRiD to increase awareness of the group risk market.

Kelly Cullum attended sessions on topics including embedded finance and white labelling, open banking and trusted smart data services, fraud and AI, agentic AI in financial services, redress, and digital assets and tokenisation.

TPR hosted the Pensions Scams Action Group and City of London Police to highlight recent developments in preventing and detecting pension fraud, including stronger cross-agency collaboration and the new Report Fraud service.

Speakers: Lord Hanson (Fraud Minister), Mike Broomfield (Head of Intelligence, TPR), Donna Walsh (Head of Master Trust, Standard Life) and Chris Bell (Service Delivery Director, City of London Police)

Jo Eldridge (Industry Engagement Specialist, Market Oversight, TPR) attended the Pension Technical Group meeting to provide an update on the progress of the Pensions Dashboards Programme, including scheme connectivity progress, and TPR expectations on data quality and operational readiness.

FCA invited key stakeholders to participate in a workshop exploring the potential remedies suggested in its interim report, and focusing on reducing the protection gap, improving claims experience, switching practices, and the concept of targeted support for pure protection.

Membership representation: Jo Stickland, Carrie Johnson (Royal London Group), Peter Hamilton (Zurich Assurance Limited), Ben Tew (Forester Financial), Pippa Keefe and David Banks (Legal and General).

Jenny Felton attended this Forum where FRC explored informal industry views on the approach to setting accumulation rates pre-retirement.

Access to FRC AS TM 1 User Forum papers is strictly controlled and these are only available to meeting participants.

Led by Rachel Lam, Mark Dungworth, and Owen Brace of the Financial Ombudsman Service, this meeting focused on car finance complaints, FOS reform, and the growing use of AI in complaints.

Access to FOS meeting papers is strictly controlled and these are only available to meeting participants.

Participants: Jo Stickland represented ILAG, joining participants from other trade associations including the AFM, Credit Services Association, Finance & Leasing Association, Building Society Association, UK Finance, Consumer Credit Association, Association of British Credit Unions, PIMFA, and ABI.

Jo Stickland, Michael Ruck, and Kelly Cullum attended this meeting, which focused on key discussion areas across ILAG’s Groups, ILAG’s overview of market developments, and a number of questions raised within the ILAG membership.

PRA attendees: Anthony Brown (Head of Retail Life Division) Mathieu Vital (Manager, Retail Life Division), and Bridget Clifford (Supervisor, Retail Life Division)

This meeting focused on setting a timetable and parameters for ILAG-ABI liaison over the rest of 2026. It  highlighted opportunities for future collaboration on the pure protection market study, economic abuse, reducing the protection gap, and targeted support.

Participants: Jo Stickland (ILAG), Rebecca Ward, William Meredew, Sasha Castel-Branco, and Ammara Patel (ABI).

An HMRC representative attended the Q1 Tax Group meeting to discuss issues and questions raised by ILAG members.

Vince Flanagan represented he ILAG membership at this forum at which HMRC provided updates on IHT on Pensions and the abolition of the Lifetime Allowance. A summary of the forum and slides from the key discussion topics have been made available for you.

On behalf of ILAG, Jo Stickland co-signed a Letter of Commitment with Fair4All Finance. The letter signals a shared determination to improve access to income protection insurance for people on precarious incomes across the UK.

Jenny Felton met HMRC and ABI to discuss concerns raised by the ILAG membership regarding HMRC’s proposed industry-led best practice Partial Exemption Special Method (PESM) framework for the Life & Pensions sector.

Jenny Felton attended this Forum where FRC explored the assumptions for how the accumulated fund is converted into pension benefits at retirement and for inflation.

Access to FRC AS TM 1 User Forum papers is strictly controlled and these are only available to meeting participants.

Contact Jenny Felton to share your views.

Jenny Felton and Mike Trigg attended this co-creation meeting relating to Phase 2 of the Prescription of the Corporation Tax Computation.

Please note that the information discussed during these meetings is confidential and may only be shared on a strictly need-to-know basis. It must not be circulated more widely.

For further information, please contact Jenny Felton.

Joining peers from Pensions UK, BIBA, TISA, ABI, and UK Finance, Jo Stickland represented the ILAG membership at this roundtable as speakers from EstateConnect, HospiceUK, UK Financial Inclusion Commission, and FCA led discussions on current experience and key challenges in the bereavement journey, regulation and framework for change, and barriers to progress in the industry.

Also in attendance were representatives from Cruse Bereavement Support, Ataloss, FOS, HM Treasury, Sue Ryder, PRA, The Good Grief Trust, and Estatesearch Group.

Kelly Cullum and Jo Stickland met with representatives from FCA's Firm and Consumer Group Team to discuss plans and activities for the remainder of 2026, with a view to identifying opportunities for FCA to work with ILAG.

Jenny Felton represented ILAG at this event.

A representative from ILAG’s membership participated in this co-creation meeting relating to Phase 2 of the Prescription of the Corporation Tax Computation.

Please note that the information discussed during these meetings is confidential and may only be shared on a strictly need-to-know basis. It must not be circulated more widely. 

These meetings have been paused for July and August.

For further information, please contact Jenny Felton.

Denise Pitts from Cifas attended the Financial Crime Group meeting to discuss the work Cifas is undertaking and how it supports the life insurance industry. 

Jo Stickland met with Rebecca Ward to discuss opportunities for collaboration between the trade associations covering the bereavement process, Pure Protection Market Study, Economic Abuse, and the Right to be Forgotten.

A representative from HMRC attended ILAG's Tax Group meeting.

PRA hosted a cyber resilience event sharing insights on current and emerging cyber resilience challenges facing the UK Financial sector. The key findings published in the 2025 CBEST Thematic were discussed and insights from STAR-FS assessments shared. 

This was held under the Chatham House Rule. 

Participants: ILAG membership representative was Wendy Brett-Reynolds.

Vince Flanagan represented our members at this forum with HMRC.

Kelly Cullum attended this meeting with representatives from the Association of Member-directed Pension Schemes (AMPS) and FCA to discuss the consultation proposals in CP26/20 ahead of the consultation response deadline of 24 August.

Jo Stickland, Michael Ruck, and Kelly Cullum will be attending this meeting, focusing on key discussion areas across ILAG’s Groups, ILAG’s overview of market developments, and a number of questions raised within the ILAG membership.

A representative from HMRC will attend ILAG's Q3 Tax Group meeting.

Vince Flannagan will represent our members at this HMRC forum.

A representative from HMRC will attend ILAG's Q4 Tax Group meeting.