GAD provided COVID-19 support
GAD provided detailed support and expertise to the government throughout the pandemic. As a result, we continued to embed new ways of working and supporting our clients.
Our strengthened secondment programme continues to redeploy support to meet new demands and build collaborative links across the public sector. We also built on our use of technology to deliver events, training, and a more hybrid style of working.
School trips
During the pandemic we worked with the Department for Education to help schools and academies, which are members of the Risk Protection Arrangement (RPA). They were seeking to cover losses arising from school trip cancellations due to COVID-19. The RPA provides an alternative to commercial insurance for schools across England. We helped build and review a model which estimated the value of trips cancelled due to COVID-19.
Events cancellation reinsurance
GAD played a central role in measures to support the UK events market. We helped develop a government-backed reinsurance scheme worth over £750 million for event cancellation insurance. We worked with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to estimate the expected number and size of events that would occur during the period of government support. The scheme, which was a partnership with the insurance industry, is expected to run until September 2022.
COVID-19 study
An actuary from GAD contributed to vital COVID-19 research which was published in the British Medical Journal. It established which groups of the population could still be at risk from COVID-19 despite being vaccinated. The research was based on data from the second pandemic wave in England which started at the beginning of September 2020. The team developed and validated multiple new QCovid® risk algorithms.
GAD’s 2021 to 2022 highlights:
- 2 actuaries were in the team which won a Royal Statistical Society Award for achievements in healthcare data analytics
- we helped ensure community pharmacies had the clinical negligence indemnity cover needed to administer vaccines in key areas of England
- the department supported the government and the British Business Bank to forecast costs of various coronavirus loan schemes which supported businesses that were losing revenue