Contagion modeling between the financial and insurance markets with time changed processes

This study analyzes the impact of contagion between financial and non-life insurance markets on the asset–liability management policy of an insurance company. The indirect dependence between these markets is modeled by assuming that the assets return and non-life insurance claims are led respectively by time-changed Brownian and jump processes, for which stochastic clocks are integrals of mutually self-exciting processes. This model exhibits delayed co-movements between financial and non-life insurance markets, caused by events like natural disasters, epidemics, or economic recessions.     

Multi-year non-life insurance risk of dependent lines of business in the multivariate additive loss reserving model

We derive analytical estimators of non-life insurance risk in multi-year view for the multivariate additive loss reserving model. Thereby we jointly assess reserve and premium risks of multiple years for portfolios of possibly dependent lines of business in one integrated approach. By extending existing formulae for the univariate additive model to the multivariate case, risk estimators for the aggregated portfolio now include the inherent dependencies among all lines of business. The resulting risk evaluation over one-year and general multi-year horizons is fundamental to regulatory reporting (e.g. the ORSA process in Solvency II) and risk-based business planning of non-life insurers with multiple lines of business. A case study illustrates the fruitful application of our formulae and reproduces previous findings for the special case of ultimo view.     

Operational time and a fundamental problem of insurance in a data-rich environment

A problem of current concern in the assessment of claims experience in non-life insurance is addressed. The problem relates to the interface of two well-defined areas of actuarial activity, namely reserving and rating. A model is proposed that permits the analysis of claim settlement experience in such a way as to allow for variations in settlement rate, proportions of nil claims and variations from year to year in a risk-factorial background. From this, the reserving approach may be developed coherently into the area of risk costing for rating purposes.     

A micro-level claim count model with overdispersion and reporting delays

The accurate estimation of outstanding liabilities of an insurance company is an essential task. This is to meet regulatory requirements, but also to achieve efficient internal capital management. Over the recent years, there has been increasing interest in the utilisation of insurance data at a more granular level, and to model claims using stochastic processes. So far, this so-called ‘micro-level reserving’ approach has mainly focused on the Poisson process.In this paper, we propose and apply a Cox process approach to model the arrival process and reporting pattern of insurance claims. This allows for over-dispersion and serial dependency in claim counts, which are typical features in real data. We explicitly consider risk exposure and reporting delays, and show how to use our model to predict the numbers of Incurred-But-Not-Reported (IBNR) claims. The model is calibrated and illustrated using real data from the AUSI data set.     

Detection and correction of outliers in the bivariate chain-ladder method

The expected profit or loss of a non-life insurance company is determined for the whole of its multiple business lines. This implies the study of the claims reserving problem for a portfolio consisting of several correlated run-off triangles. A popular technique to deal with such a portfolio is the multivariate chain-ladder method of Merz and Wüthrich (2008). However, it is well known that the chain-ladder method is very sensitive to outlying data. For the univariate case, we have already developed a robust version of the chain-ladder method. In this article we propose two techniques to detect and correct outlying values in a bivariate situation. The methodologies are illustrated and compared on real examples from practice.     

Full Bayesian analysis of claims reserving uncertainty

We revisit the gamma–gamma Bayesian chain-ladder (BCL) model for claims reserving in non-life insurance. This claims reserving model is usually used in an empirical Bayesian way using plug-in estimates for the variance parameters. The advantage of this empirical Bayesian framework is that allows us for closed form solutions. The main purpose of this paper is to develop the full Bayesian case also considering prior distributions for the variance parameters and to study the resulting sensitivities.     

Paid-incurred chain claims reserving method

We present a novel stochastic model for claims reserving that allows us to combine claims payments and incurred losses information. The main idea is to combine two claims reserving models (Hertig’s (1985) model and Gogol’s (1993) model ) leading to a log-normal paid-incurred chain (PIC) model. Using a Bayesian point of view for the parameter modelling we derive in this Bayesian PIC model the full predictive distribution of the outstanding loss liabilities. On the one hand, this allows for an analytical calculation of the claims reserves and the corresponding conditional mean square error of prediction. On the other hand, simulation algorithms provide any other statistics and risk measure on these claims reserves.     

未决赔款准备金评估的随机性Munich链梯法

精算实务界通常采用链梯法等确定性方法评估未决赔款准备金,这些评估方法存在一定缺陷,一方面不能有效考虑保险公司历史数据中所包含的已决赔款和已报案赔款数据信息,另一方面只能得到未决赔款准备金的均值估计,不能度量不确定性。为了克服这些缺陷,本文结合Mack模型假设和非参数Bootstrap重抽样方法,提出了未决赔款准备金评估的随机性Munich链梯法,并应用R软件对精算实务中的实例给出了数值分析。     

Solvency margins and equalization reserves

We indicate a simple solution to the evaluation of solvency margins and equalization reserves in a non-life insurance portfolio. One of our provision models is based on a combination of ruin and credibility theory. It takes characteristics such as variance of claims, correlation of claims and volume of portfolio into account.     

Addendum to ‘The multi-year non-life insurance risk in the additive reserving model’ [Insurance Math. Econom. 52(3) (2013) 590–598]: Quantification of multi-year non-life insurance risk in chain ladder reserving models

This is the first study to derive closed-form analytical expressions for multi-year non-life insurance risk in the chain ladder model. Extending on previous research on the additive reserving model, we define multi-year risk via prediction errors of multi-year claims development results including both observed and future accident years. A resampling argument and a first-order Taylor approximation address the quantification of estimation errors and multiplicative dependencies in the chain ladder framework, respectively. From our generalized multi-year approach, we deduce estimators for reserve and premium risks in multi-year view and their implicit correlation. We reproduce well-known results from literature for the special cases of one-year and ultimo view. Further, we comment on how to obtain estimators for generalized versions of the chain ladder method. A case study demonstrates the applicability of our analytical formulae.     

Conditional least squares and copulae in claims reserving for a single line of business

One of the main goals in non-life insurance is to estimate the claims reserve distribution. A generalized time series model, that allows for modeling the conditional mean and variance of the claim amounts, is proposed for the claims development. On contrary to the classical stochastic reserving techniques, the number of model parameters does not depend on the number of development periods, which leads to a more precise forecasting.Moreover, the time series innovations for the consecutive claims are not considered to be independent anymore. Conditional least squares are used to estimate model parameters and consistency of these estimates is proved. The copula approach is used for modeling the dependence structure, which improves the precision of the reserve distribution estimate as well.Real data examples are provided as an illustration of the potential benefits of the presented approach.     

Semiparametric model for prediction of individual claim loss reserving

The estimation of loss reserves for incurred but not reported (IBNR) claims presents an important task for insurance companies to predict their liabilities. Conventional methods, such as ladder or separation methods based on aggregated or grouped claims of the so-called “run-off triangle”, have been illustrated to have some drawbacks. Recently, individual claim loss models have attracted a great deal of interest in actuarial literature, which can overcome the shortcomings of aggregated claim loss models. In this paper, we propose an alternative individual claim loss model, which has a semiparametric structure and can be used to fit flexibly the claim loss reserving. Local likelihood is employed to estimate the parametric and nonparametric components of the model, and their asymptotic properties are discussed. Then the prediction of the IBNR claim loss reserving is investigated. A simulation study is carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods.     

基于有限服务排队系统的未决赔款准备金分布

若保险赔付工作中赔付人员有限,根据服务人员有限的排队系统的性质,可以研究保险公司所需计提的未决赔款准备金的分布函数.当假设赔付服务工作人员为c个,使用M/M/c/∞和G/M/c/∞排队系统的性质可以得到未决赔款准备金分布函数和年末所需增加计提的未决赔款准备金的分布及其界值.当假设赔付服务工作人员仅一个,使用M/G/1/∞排队系统的性质可以得到此时未决赔款准备金的分布函数.并且在假设损失赔付额取正整数的条件下,得到年末保险公司所需增加计提的未决赔款准备金分布的递推公式.而且通过计算实例表明结论的实用性,及所得到的递推公式在以往难以准确求解未决赔款准备金分布时是十分有效的.     

稀疏过程在保险公司破产问题中的应用

本文讨论适用于一类人寿保险和财产保险的风险过程 ,其中保单到达服从Poisson过程 ,而描述索赔发生的计数过程为保单到达过程的 p -稀疏过程。对此模型给出了破产概率的上界并对该上界进行了随机模拟 ,同时把所得结果与经典情形进行比较     

Nonlinear reserving in life insurance: Aggregation and mean-field approximation

We suggest a unified approach to claims reserving for life insurance policies with reserve-dependent payments driven by multi-state Markov chains. The associated prospective reserve is formulated as a recursive utility function using the framework of backward stochastic differential equations (BSDE). We show that the prospective reserve satisfies a nonlinear Thiele equation for Markovian BSDEs when the driver is a deterministic function of the reserve and the underlying Markov chain. Aggregation of prospective reserves for large and homogeneous insurance portfolios is considered through mean-field approximations. We show that the corresponding prospective reserve satisfies a BSDE of mean-field type and derive the associated nonlinear Thiele equation.     

A note on insurance leverage under skew distributions

Insurance leverage denotes the impact of the insurance specific reserves on the return on equity of the insurance company. We analyze insurance leverage on the basis of a stochastic one-period model of the insurance business, especially accounting for the skewness of the involved distributions.     

Diffusion premiums for claim severities subject to inflation

Analytical formulas for net, stop-loss and risk loaded premiums are derived. These are based on a diffusion model for the aggregate claims of a risk business which accounts for inflation on claim severities and for interest on their accumulation. The model has been given a number of formal justifications based on weak convergence arguments. An alternate justification based on stochastic differential equations is added here for completeness.     

The effect of the nature of the liabilities on the solvency and maturity payouts of a UK life office fund: a stochastic evaluation

Several studies have shown that a simulation model of participating life insurance business must reflect explicitly the major decisions which are left to the discretion of management. In the UK these decisions include asset allocation and bonus distribution. It is also common in the UK to use premium bases which do not explicitly account for the expectation that a terminal bonus will be paid, while using a uniform system of reversionary bonus for business of all terms. Here, we show that this results in short-term business being at much greater risk of insolvency than long-term business, under a variety of investment strategies. Our main purpose is to study the effect of small changes to the parameters of the investment model used on the outcomes described above. For this purpose we compare results using two versions of the Wilkie model (Wilkie, A.D., 1986. A stochastic investment model for actuarial use. Transactions of the Faculty of Actuaries 39, 341–403, Wilkie, A.D., 1995. More on a stochastic asset model for actuarial use. British Actuarial Journal 1, 1–168.) We show that small changes in the variances of the economic series modelled have a marked impact on solvency, while changes in maturity values are mostly the result of a small change in the rate of real dividend growth.     

Full and 1‐year runoff risk in the credibility‐based additive loss reserving method

In this paper, we consider the additive loss reserving (ALR) method in a Bayesian and credibility setup. The classical ALR method is a simple claims reserving method that combines prior information (e.g., premiums, number of contracts, market statistics) with claims observations. The Bayesian setup, which we present, in addition, allows for combining the information from a single runoff portfolio (e.g., company‐specific data) with the information from a collective (e.g., industry‐wide data) to analyze the claims reserves and the claims development result. However, in insurance practice, the associated distributions are usually unknown. Therefore, we do not follow the full Bayesian approach but apply credibility theory, which is distribution free and where we only need to know the first and second moments. That is, we derive the credibility predictors that minimize the expected squared loss within the class of affine‐linear functions of the observations (i.e., we derive linear Bayesian predictors). Using non‐informative priors, we link our credibility‐based ALR method to the classical ALR method and show that the credibility predictors coincide with the predictors in the classical ALR method. Moreover, we quantify the 1‐year risk and the full reserve risk by means of the conditional mean square error of prediction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A machine learning approach for individual claims reserving in insurance

Accurate loss reserves are an important item in the financial statement of an insurance company and are mostly evaluated by macrolevel models with aggregate data in run‐off triangles. In recent years, a new set of literature has considered individual claims data and proposed parametric reserving models based on claim history profiles. In this paper, we present a nonparametric and flexible approach for estimating outstanding liabilities using all the covariates associated to the policy, its policyholder, and all the information received by the insurance company on the individual claims since its reporting date. We develop a machine learning–based method and explain how to build specific subsets of data for the machine learning algorithms to be trained and assessed on. The choice for a nonparametric model leads to new issues since the target variables (claim occurrence and claim severity) are right‐censored most of the time. The performance of our approach is evaluated by comparing the predictive values of the reserve estimates with their true values on simulated data. We compare our individual approach with the most used aggregate data method, namely, chain ladder, with respect to the bias and the variance of the estimates. We also provide a short real case study based on a Dutch loan insurance portfolio.