About Pollock Actuarial

Established in 1992, as Pollock & Galbraith the company has taken instructions and prepared reports for several hundred firms of solicitors as well as accountants, financial advisers and life insurance companies.

Since 2002 John has been a member of the influential Ogden Working Party which prepares the Ogden Tables of multipliers used by solicitors in the quantification of damages. He has appeared in Courts and Tribunals across the UK in a range of matters on which he has prepared opinions, with pension loss, loss of support and life expectancy calculations being a particular specialty. In any year the company produces several hundred expert witness reports, mainly in personal injury and fatal accident cases. These are specifically tailored to the jurisdiction involved.

He was responsible for drafting the Actuarial Professional Standard: “The Actuary as an expert in Legal Proceedings”
He was appointed by the Ministry of Justice in 2015 to provide evidence to the Lord Chancellor on the setting of the personal injury discount rate
A free initial inspection of papers is offered after which a specific fixed fee quotation will be given and fees for consultations and Court appearances are based on hourly rates

John Pollock BSc, PhD, FFA

John is one of the few actuaries in the UK who specialises in the provision of expert witness opinions on the actuarial aspects of a range of legal matters.

Dr POLLOCK’S CV

Dr Pollock – Consulting Actuary Qualifications

BSc Degree in Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics (1st Class Honours)
Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
PhD in Medical Statistics, Edinburgh University

Background

Born in 1962 Dr Pollock has lectured and examined in both actuarial mathematics and statistics, both at University and for the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. He has served as the external examiner for postgraduate actuarial science degree courses at Heriot-Watt University. Prior to becoming involved in expert witness projects Dr Pollock had a background in institutional investment management, in London and Edinburgh, and was a member of the FT Actuaries Index Committee.

Dr Pollock qualified as a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in 1986 and has been involved in providing expert actuarial opinions on a range of legal matters for around 25 years. He has been the representative of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries on the ‘Ogden Working Party’ since the publication of the 4th edition of the Actuarial Tables with explanatory notes for use in Personal Injury and Fatal Accident Cases in 2000. He was involved in drafting the Actuarial Professional Standard X3: The Actuary as an Expert in Legal Proceedings. In 2015 Dr Pollock was appointed by the Ministry of Justice to serve on an expert panel to provide advice to the Lord Chancellor and his counterparts in the devolved administrations on matters relating to the setting of the discount rate for use in cases of personal injury and fatal accident.

The main areas where Dr Pollock provides opinions are as follows. He produces or supervises the production of several hundred reports each year:

Personal injury cases – Loss of pension, loss of earnings, costs of care, multipliers etc
Personal injury cases – Advice on the structuring of Periodic Payment Orders
Life expectancy issues – Life expectancy for disabled/injured claimants & multipliers
Fatal accident cases – Loss of support from earnings and post retirement income
Discount rate issues – Reports on investment conditions and discount rates
Employment Tribunals – Loss of pension and share option calculations
Trust & Probate – Valuation of life and reversionary interests, probate valuations
Family law – Pension and share option valuation on divorce, pension sharing

Download as PDF HERE

Alexander Pollock, Bsc CAA

Having graduated from Warwick Business School in 2020 Alexander qualified as a Certified Actuarial Analyst Member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in 2023 and is the key contact for the majority of personal injury instructions.

ALEXANDER POLLOCK’S CV

Educational Background

Born in 1998, Alexander graduated in 2020 from Warwick Business School at Warwick University with a BSc degree in Management (2:1), having competed modules in financial mathematics, financial markets and technology, accounting, marketing, economics, governance, organisation theory, management of businesses and quantitative analysis.

Pollock & Galbraith – June 2020 to December 2023 – Trainee Actuarial Analyst

After graduation Alexander joined Pollock & Galbraith where he assisted in software development and the preparation of reports, predominately in the field of personal injury, whilst also studying to be a Certified Actuarial Analyst Member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

To qualify as a Certified Actuarial Analyst, Alexander passed exams on the following topics.

Advanced mathematics.
Mathematics of Finance (valuation of cash flows, discounting, rates of return, actuarial applications)
Statistics & Probability (statistical distributions and applications to actuarial problems, survival models)
Life Actuarial Mathematics (assurances, annuities, reversions, mortality studies)
Non-Life Actuarial Mathematics (statistical models for non-life actuarial applications including reinsurance).
Actuarial Modelling – Study of approaches to the use of software to analyse and report on data and predict outcomes, mainly using Excel.

Pollock Actuarial – January 2024 onwards

Since qualification, and becoming a Director of Pollock Actuarial, Alexander has been fully involved with our many clients, dealing with taking instructions, collating and requesting information, reviewing expert medical and vocational input before progressing to prepare the required actuarial calculations and co-signing the eventual report. He is personally responsible for in excess of 300 cases per year and is a key point of contact for personal injury cases. The main fields of activity are as follows.

Personal injury cases, loss of pension, earnings, care costs and other heads of claim. Requires familiarity with all types of UK pension schemes and a knowledge of how to deal with impaired life expectancy. These mainly involve accidents at work, medical negligence, road traffic accidents and industrial disease.
Fatal accident cases calculating pre and post-retirement loss of support.
Trust and probate matters, calculating life and reversionary interests.
Pension loss in employment tribunal cases
Occasional input in family law matters.

Alexander is also responsible for maintaining and developing the software used to perform the calculations required for the cases Pollock Actuarial deals with in any year. These include software for analysing historic pension performance, reviews of returns on different asset classes and the calculation of multipliers, discounting factors and mortality adjustments to be used in cases of personal injury and fatal accident.