Stephen Richards Consulting Ltd was originally set up in 2005 by Stephen Richards, one of a handful of specialists on the actuarial aspects of annuities and longevity matters.

Stephen's published work has been quoted in the press, including a profile in the Financial Times. His work has also been referenced by equity analyst reports covering the listed life insurance companies in Europe. Stephen has been a regular speaker at actuarial conferences on annuitant and pensioner longevity. Links to forthcoming presentations can be found here.

After graduating from Heriot-Watt University, with a first-class honours degree in Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics, Stephen began his actuarial career with Scottish Provident, working in Edinburgh, before spending 1995-97 in Stuttgart, Germany, where he consulted for Peter Gessner and Partner GmbH. In 1997 he returned to the U.K. to work for Standard Life, where he spent two years supporting the German branch operations, followed by three years in marketing and product pricing. Amongst his responsibilities at Standard Life were annuity pricing and managing the bulk-annuity team, and it was from there that he was recruited in 2003 by the U.K insurer Prudential to be Head of Mortality Risk. In July 2005 he founded Richards Consulting and in 2006 he founded Longevitas to provide software services for analysing mortality and longevity.

Stephen is a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries, and is very active within the U.K. actuarial profession on mortality matters. He is chairman of the Faculty of Actuaries' mortality research group, and a member of the CMIB mortality sub-committee. He is also a member of the CMIB working party on technical standards, and is an honorary research fellow at Heriot-Watt University.