Professionalism: The Role of Peer Review

Work review may be standard practice in your work environment. While terminology can differ between organisations and fields of practice, the terms I’ve seen most frequently used are:

• Technical review: The technical review of models, calculations and ‘the numbers’.
• Peer review: Primarily focused on the judgements made. It might, for example, consider whether the model, the assumptions, the results and the advice make sense and adequately address the scope of work required.
• External peer review: A subset of the above, carried out by a different organisation. This has a historical reference point in the external peer review requirements that once were part of APRA’s prudential framework.

Peer review is fundamentally tied to the Competence and Care principle within the Code of Conduct (the Code). The Professionalism Committee has recently expanded the Code Guidance document, adding a subsection on peer review, underscoring its significance for professionalism. 

The Guidance document is designed to help bring the principles-based Code to life, with further description of the intent and examples of practice and other considerations when interpreting and applying the Code in the real world. While the new text sits within the Competence and Care section of the Guidance, it is more widely applicable.

The Code Guidance proposes two prime objectives of peer review:

• Meeting ‘community expectations’ of professional behaviour; and
• Supporting members in their practice and in their professional development.

In my experience, a fresh pair of eyes almost inevitably brings value and that value-add can be tremendous. Even a “no comment” peer review can provide a level of reassurance that the work and the advice to the client is cohesive, sound and well-communicated.

At one level, the value of peer review is perhaps most obvious for members less experienced in the particular work and/or context in which it is being undertaken. I could rattle off numerous instances where as a less-experienced actuary, issues and suggestions raised during peer review both improved the advice provided to the client and provided value to me in terms of my professional development.

As my experience grew, there were perhaps fewer of those fundamental learning moments, but there was always value from the challenge and discussion on things such as

• interpretation of the data and analysis (and alerting me to confirmation bias)
• the influence of the client’s perspective, positioning, or situation
• the key judgements made
• potential gaps or ambiguities in the written advice.

Actuarial work by its nature contains many elements of judgement, and there is always scope for differences of opinion. A peer reviewer may not support the advice, but by virtue of opening the work to review, some of the more contentious judgement calls will ideally be surfaced and debated. That, in itself, is a benefit.

It is interesting how often in my career the review with a peer would uncover something that had been nagging away in my subconscious. A quote from the article, “Hiding in the ‘Actuarial Castle’?” which I make reference at the end of this article, is relevant here too.

Peer review not only helps with quality, but it can help strengthen your resolve and also help you defend a stance taken in the event that the work is not well-received or is disputed.

Things to consider as a peer reviewer or when seeking peer review:

• Appropriate skills and experience of the reviewer
• Are they a member or not? For actuarial advice another member is perhaps the most obvious “best fit”, however, this too may depend on the scope of the work, the skills available to the member seeking a review and the specialist expertise offered by an available non-member.
• Assignment and review context. For the reviewer to truly perform their role, it is essential that they be given a clear understanding of the context of the piece of work. For example, work related to potential M&A activity; a financing ‘deal’; a contractual requirement; a difficult consultant/client relationship.
• Scope of the review. Is everything to be reviewed, or is the reviewer being asked to limit the review to specific areas, such as where the judgement calls might be most significant or most contentious? For the reviewer, having a constrained scope might present a dilemma.
• Visibility to the client/recipient of the advice. Will the work be ‘badged’ as having been peer reviewed. And if so, is the peer reviewer identified?
• Independence. Is there an expectation, or a requirement, that the peer review be an independent or external one?
• Potential conflicts of interest. This is another reason to ensure that the reviewer understands the context of the assignment and of the review.

There are both local and international resources available to assist with your deliberations on whether to have work peer reviewed, and if so, on the scope. These include archived materials such as our own PS315, or the APRA prudential requirements relating to external peer review, the Academy of Actuaries professionalism Discussion Paper “Peer Review: How can it help?”, and the IFoA documents “APS X2 Review of Actuarial Work”, and the accompanying guidance document.

Among the many resources available to members for professionalism CPD, one I highly recommend is the recording of the session “ Professionalism: Failures, Consequences and Answers ” from the 2023 International Congress of Actuaries, held in Sydney.

You can also get a taste of the content in the article – “ Hiding in the ‘Actuarial Castle’ ?” as peer review gets a mention here too. 

To delve deeper into the practical application of peer review — including when it's needed, who should provide it, and how to respond to critical feedback — join Simon Lim and Saffron Sweeney at Peering into Peer Review on 27 November 2025. The session is free for members and available both in-person and virtually. Register now.