Two lead­ing ac­tu­ar­ies are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion to safe­guard the fu­ture of T&T’s Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme (NIS), rec­om­mend­ing an in­crease in both the re­tire­ment age and the con­tri­bu­tion rate as es­sen­tial steps to­ward long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

As Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo pre­pares to de­liv­er the 2026 na­tion­al bud­get, he is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the in­creas­ing­ly frag­ile state of the NIS, which is un­der mount­ing pres­sure from the coun­try’s rapid­ly ag­ing pop­u­la­tion and the widen­ing gap be­tween what the NIS re­ceives and what it spends.

With few­er young con­trib­u­tors and re­tirees liv­ing longer, the sys­tem is fac­ing a de­mo­graph­ic and fis­cal im­bal­ance that, if left un­ad­dressed, could lead to fund de­ple­tion with­in the next decade.