Just what do IFoA Fellows and Associates get for their annual subscriptions of ￡765 and ￡570?

What are the benefits? It is not attendance at events such as GIRO because events are meant to be self financing.

Instead the benefits appear to be:

Benefits

1. Access to the member only parts of the IFoA website (including community forums and any past conference material that the IFoA supplies free of charge to members)
2. Access to British Actuarial Journal and Annals of Actuarial Science (and The Actuary magazine, but the latter is available free online to anyone)
3. Access to professionalism videos (free but compulsory viewing for a certain number of hours under IFoA CPD requirements)
4. Having the right to use credential letters e.g. FIA or FFA (as opposed to e.g. FIA 2005-2023 for members who have left).

Are there any other direct benefits that I have missed?

The above are all things that cost the IFoA money to produce and maintain, with the exception of 4.

Costs that the IFoA incurs that are directly related to Fellows and Associates

The IFoA has other costs, but unlike the above, none of these can be viewed as direct benefits for Fellows and Associates. Ignoring costs which relate to a) students and b) events, because again those two areas are meant to be self financing, these other costs that directly relate to Fellows and Associates seem to include the following:

1. Paying staff to audit the CPD Scheme (about 10% of members subject to CPD are randomly audited each year).
2. Contributing to the IFoA's overheads (renting office accommodation, paying staff salaries, and the cost of the IT, telephone, electricity, heating, water that they need to use).
3. Paying for staff travel and accommodation when travelling between offices.
4. Paying for the legal and regulation department, including the lay members of the Regulatory Board, Disciplinary Scheme, and the lay members of the various disciplinary panels.
5. Sponsoring research and development, participating in international actuarial associations such as the IAA (International Actuarial Association) and AAE (Association Actuariel Europeen).
6. Paying for the public policy and affairs team, including responding to relevant public consultations, and more recently attending political party conferences.

4 above arguably includes the cost of pursuing disciplinary complaints, although the IFoA has been increasingly aggressive in trying to reclaim costs from actuaries who breach its (increasingly intrusive and often not very clearly defined) codes, standards and guidance, which leads to an element of double counting.

Have I missed anything significant?

Now the interesting questions are how much each of Benefits 1 to 4 cost the IFoA, and how much costs 1 to 6 are, and how the total of all these compare with the monies raised from membership fees of ￡765 and ￡570.

It is not very easy to get this information from the IFoA's published annual reports and financial statements.

The IFoA's 2022-2023 Annual Report does have a breakdown of sorts of how membership fees are spent, but the 2023-2024 report does not - why? (The 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 financial statements are here and here respectively but don't seem very helpful in answering my questions. If I have missed anything please let me know!).

From the 2022-2023 report the IFoA spent 14% of total membership fees (that is students and Affiliates as well as Fellows and Associates) on "Member communication". That was some ￡2 million, which seems rather a lot.

A further ￡1.5 million was spent on "Communities engagement" - what is that? Is that the online discussion forums?

It also spent a total of some 18-19% on "discipline and regulation", which is a total of c ￡2.6 million.

It spent just over ￡1 million on governance, which seems an unfortunately large amount given the massive controversy over how the governance changes were handled in 2023.

Policy and public affairs cost a further ￡1.3 million.

"Markets engagement" cost a further ￡1.3 million. What exactly was this? Was it trying to open new markets in the Gulf, China, India and Pakistan (all areas that the IFoA seems to be increasingly concentrating on)?

Are IFoA members happy with these levels of expenditure being made from their membership subscriptions?

At least the IFoA provided some information about this in its 2022-2023 report. There seems to be nothing in the 2023-2024 report.

But an even larger area of expenditure is far more opaque at the moment.

The 2022-2023 report refers to total expenditure of ￡29.919 million, of which the membership fees (of ￡13.942 million) are less than half.

A very limited breakdown is given of this ￡29.919 million :

15% is "Finance" amounting to ￡4.5 million. This seems a rather large amount. The report says this includes "insurance fees and credit card charges": are those really the most significant items within ￡4.5 million? Why is the IFoA incurring significant credit card charges? Just how high are its insurance premiums (fees is an odd word to use) and why?

10% is Governance, or almost ￡3 million (including the ￡1 million taken from membership fees referred to above). What did IFoA members get for the further ￡2 million spent? Who was it paid to?

10% is IT. Are the IFoA's website and web platforms really worth spending ￡3m a year on? And does this include the ￡1.5 million spent on "community engagement" or was that a further expense?

7% is Facilities/Property or ￡2 million: does the IFoA really need to spend ￡2 million on property/rent? (I'm assuming that staff computers and software licenses are included in the separate amount for IT above).

HR cost 3% or almost ￡0.9 million.

There is hardly any information about how the remaining 55% of the ￡29.9 million is spent on: the report just says that 37% (or ￡11m) is "Fixed -direct costs" and 18% (￡5.4 million) is "Variable -direct costs".

The IFoA acts as if members have no alternative. That is no longer the case.

Whether you intend to leave the IFoA or not, why not investigate a better membership experience? Join the waitlist:

https://scorecard.inqa.com/neworg-1

Update 0845 1 Nov 2024: corrected some typos and added links to the most recent report and to the financial statements. The amounts indeed are surprisingly large.