No Regulatory Board minutes since 2025.
No Council minutes since November 2025.
No IFoA Board minutes since April 2026.
They've continued to meet.
So what's happened to the minutes?
They still don't show the Council email address on their Council page too!
Potentially very bad news for the IFoA: The Institute of Actuaries of India has massively expanded its Student Support Scheme, raising the family-income limit from ₹3 lakh to ₹8 lakh a year — a 167% increase.
Eligible students can receive support towards IAI membership, study materials, coaching and exam fees.
And the new rules now say students must pursue IAI exams “exclusively” as their core academic study.
Why should UK actuaries care?
Because India is an important overseas market for the IFoA. If more Indian students choose IAI rather than paying IFoA membership and exam fees, the IFoA loses revenue. Fewer Indian IFoA students means fewer subscriptions and fewer exam entries. And that raises an obvious question for UK students: who makes up the lost income?
Someone posted this development on r/ActuaryUK. The thread attracted 24 comments and 17 shares.
Then the moderators removed it.
What a remarkable way to run a subreddit supposedly devoted to UK actuarial issues. A development with potentially big consequences for IFoA student numbers, revenues and ultimately UK exam fees generates a lively discussion — so the moderators remove it.
Fortunately, r/ActuaryUK moderators don't get to delete the underlying news. We're here.
IAI has dramatically widened financial support for its own students.
UK actuaries have every reason to discuss what that could mean for the IFoA, and why IFoA fails to offer the same while charging vastly more than IAI.
IAI has allowed to provide free exams for the CM1 CS1 CM2 CS2 CB1 CB2 papers whose family earning is less than 8 lakhs INR and most of them falls under it.
Which means now very few people of India will choose IFoA
after gaining the IAI fellowship they can directly ask for the IFoA fellowship.
And truly, I regret my decision of choosing IFoA currently
It's expensive and believe that it is loosing it's edge from the Asia.
So, UK student don't be happy that IAI cannot enter in the UK market. They had the MRA.
So, what's your point of view and yes I regret choosing IFoA saying it openly.
And, dear IFoA please reduce your fees and make it more feasible for Commonwealth nations. Otherwise, loose your edge.
Respected specialist publication InsuranceERM has reported that the IFoA is threatening to quit the Actuarial Association of Europe unless its €167,000 annual fee is slashed by 50%.
The story has now become InsuranceERM’s most-read article.
Remarkably, the same publication reported on an eerily similar IFoA–AAE confrontation six years ago. Readers can compare the two stories and draw their own conclusions.
https://www.insuranceerm.com/news-comment/ifoa-accused-of-blackmail-in-negotiations-with-aae.html
This time, the stakes include the possible collapse of the Mutual Recognition Agreement, an alternative UK actuarial body and a deadline at the end of August—all while the IFoA reels from a £4.8 million deficit.
It is becoming a major professional story everywhere except, apparently, at the IFoA itself. Members heard virtually nothing about it—even during the recent Council election.
The IFoA is demanding that its €167,112 annual contribution to the Actuarial Association of Europe be cut by approximately half—and the dispute has become so bitter that the AAE Board has proposed establishing an alternative UK actuarial association that could replace the IFoA within the European system.
Withdrawal would end the IFoA’s participation in the European Mutual Recognition Agreement it only rejoined last year, unless an alternative arrangement were secured. On unchanged forecast expenditure, it could also leave the AAE facing a deficit of approximately €271,450.
Why haven’t members been told?
Published IFoA Board minutes acknowledge discussions with the AAE—but redact every substantive detail. Published Board and Council records disclose none of the 50% proposal, termination notice, rival UK association, attempted removal of Malcolm Kemp or risk to mutual recognition.
The IFoA has also just held a Council election without this dispute being publicly debated—even after it had boiled over into a threatened withdrawal and proposals for a rival professional body.
Members are discovering all this thanks only to this subreddit.
How did it come to this?
The relationship has been troubled since at least 2020. By then, the IFoA had faced legal challenges from actuaries over its mutual-recognition arrangements, including scrutiny of the AAE agreement. The IFoA also reviewed whether to remain an AAE member and kept “all options” open. The AAE admitted it had become financially dependent on the IFoA and introduced a special contribution cap to persuade it to stay.
In October 2021, the IFoA withdrew from the AAE Mutual Recognition Agreement while remaining a full AAE member. It officially attributed this to changes in the two organisations’ syllabuses—which it said were no longer aligned—and the need to reconsider the arrangement in a post-Brexit context.
The IFoA rejoined the MRA in January 2025.
Just one year later, in January 2026, it served notice that it would terminate its AAE membership unless its financial contribution was reduced.
The dispute then turned ugly. The AAE Board proposed exploring a rival UK actuarial association and replacing the IFoA’s Malcolm Kemp as Vice-Chair. Both proposals attracted majority support in May but failed to meet the required voting thresholds.
The IFoA has since proposed a special non-EU/EFTA membership category—effectively designed for itself—and stipulated that its fee must be no more than 50% of the current amount.
This comes immediately after the IFoA reported a £4.8 million deficit in its latest annual report. The IFoA says AAE membership costs it at least €220,000 annually, including approximately €50,000 spent on staff and volunteer travel.
The AAE’s financial paper shows that withdrawal would reduce its forecast income to €399,370. Against unchanged forecast expenditure of €670,820, that implies a deficit of approximately €271,450.
The clock is now ticking towards 31 August.
The IFoA ran in-person exams for decades.
COVID forced exams online.
Now we're back to exam halls—and suddenly there's a £4.8 million hole in the finances. IFoA can't cover the cost of what it used to do.
What changed?
And if in-person exams now cost so much more to run, does this mean students should expect higher exam fees?
The new paid Board oversaw a £4.8 million loss and had to ask Council for permission to dip into members' reserves after the exam fiasco.
Their reassurance? In-person exams are now permanent, the extra costs have somehow been "absorbed", and they'll get back into surplus through "operational efficiencies".
Which efficiencies?
The accounts don't tell us.
No savings identified. No numbers. Just "trust us".
Meanwhile, the CEO, Executive Directors and Board cost the organisation around £1.9 million a year. Isn't that an obvious place to make savings?
If actuaries are expected to justify every assumption they make, why is the IFoA asking its own members to accept one of the biggest financial assumptions of all without seeing the evidence?
Hii, as the title says, I failed CS2 by 2 marks ( got 58, the probable pass mark is 60). The past few attempts have been on a similar scale, like me getting 4-5 marks around the passing mark...
I am not sure what to do now, I work at a small scale P&C insurer where they are okay with this result. Since I have failed CS2 multiple for the past 2 years, I am literally at the bottom of the actuarial career now. I don't want to leave the profession, but I just don't have the guts to register for a new attempt this September (and I also am not sure if I can take a break this September). I am at this stage that everything seems impossible...pls help me?
I received a warning letter from the IFoA- for all students sitting online exams please note. Of course I will have to practice silence on my end as part of the 300+ hours of prep- a small (but significant) matter that seems to have escaped my notice under pressure.
A serving IFoA councillor seeking re-election says members must elect representatives who will "fight" to stop newly qualified actuaries' dreams being crushed, qualifications being devalued, and to keep the profession run by actuaries.
Those are serious claims.
After a full Council term, members deserve to know:
- Who exactly are they fighting?
- Who is trying to devalue the actuarial qualification?
- Who is trying to stop actuaries running the profession?
If these threats are real, identify them.
If you're asking members for another term, they deserve more than warnings. They deserve answers.
