Valuation of risk-based premium of DB pension plan with terminations

This paper concentrates on the premium valuation of pension insurance provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The PBGC provides a defined benefit pension sponsor with coverage in case that the pension fund fails to make pension payments as promised or that the plan sponsor does not stay in business any more. In practice, both the pension fund and the sponsor assets play a critical role in fulfilling the commitment of pension payments, and thereby it is not reasonable to isolate the risk of distress termination of the sponsor assets from that of the premature termination of the pension fund. Different from previous works in which the premature termination of the pension fund and the distress termination of the sponsor assets are analyzed separately, our model examines the situation in which retirees suffer the risk of two types of terminations at the same time. We evaluate the risk-based fair premium under the framework that the pension fund and the sponsor assets are correlated and subject to the risk of the involuntary termination (i.e., premature termination) and the distress termination, respectively. In this framework, we manage to obtain closed-form pricing formulas. Our model is more practical because of the realistic design of termination schemes. Numerical simulations are also carried out to demonstrate our findings. Our numerical experiments validate that a variable rate premium is more appropriate for the PBGC to implement.     

Continuous-time Markov chain models to estimate the premium for extended hedge fund lockups

A lockup period for investment in a hedge-fund is a time period after making the investment during which an investor cannot freely redeem his investment. Since long lockup periods have recently been imposed, it is important to estimate the premium an investor should expect from extended lockups. For this, Derman et al. (Wilmott J. 1(5–6):263–293, 2009) proposed a parsimonious three-state discrete-time Markov Chain (DTMC) to model the state of a hedge fund, allowing the state to change randomly among the states “good,” “sick” and “dead” every year. In this paper, we propose an alternative three-state absorbing continuous-time Markov Chain (CTMC) model, which allows state changes continuously in time instead of yearly. Allowing more dynamic state changes is more realistic, but the CTMC model requires new techniques for parameter fitting. We employ nonlinear programming to solve the new calibration equations. We show that the more realistic CTMC model is a viable alternative to the previous DTMC model for estimating the premium for extended hedge fund lockups.     

A risk-based model for the valuation of pension insurance

In the US, defined benefit plans are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Taking account of the fact that the PBGC covers only the residual deficits of the pension fund the sponsoring company is unable to cover and that the plans can be prematurely terminated, we consider a model that accounts for the joint dynamics of the pension fund’s and sponsoring firm’s assets in order to effectively determine the risk-based pension premium for the insurance provided by the PBGC. We obtain a closed-form pricing formula for this risk-based premium. Its magnitude depends highly on the investment portfolio of the pension fund and of the sponsoring company as well as the correlation between these two portfolios.     

Pricing electricity derivatives within a Markov regime-switching model: a risk premium approach

In this paper we derive analytic formulas for electricity derivatives under assumption that electricity spot prices follow a 3-regime Markov regime-switching model with independent spikes and drops and periodic transition matrix. Since the classical derivatives pricing methodology cannot be used in the case of non-storable commodities, we employ the concept of the risk premium. The obtained theoretical results are then used for the European Energy Exchange data analysis. We calculate the risk premium in the case of the calibrated 3-regime MRS model. We find a time varying structure of the risk premium and an evidence for a negative risk premium (or positive forward premium), especially at short times before delivery. Finally, we use the obtained risk premium to calculate prices of European options written on spot, as well as, forward prices.     

Analysis of a drawdown-based regime-switching Lévy insurance model

In this paper, we propose a new drawdown-based regime-switching (DBRS) Lévy insurance model in which the underlying drawdown process is used to model an insurer’s level of financial distress over time, and to trigger regime-switching transitions. By some analytical arguments, we derive explicit formulas for a generalized two-sided exit problem. We specifically state conditions under which the survival probability is not trivially zero (which corresponds to the positive security loading conditions of the proposed model). The regime-dependent occupation time until ruin is later studied. As a special case of the general DBRS model, a regime-switching premium model is given further consideration. Connections with other existing risk models (such as the loss-carry-forward tax model of Albrecher and Hipp, 2007) are established.     

Asset pricing under ambiguous information: an empirical game-theoretic analysis

In a representative agent model, the behavior of a social system is described in terms of a single aggregate decision maker. Such models are popular in economic and finance research, largely due to their analytic tractability, but fail to account for real-world agent heterogeneity, and may ignore effects of market microstructure. Agent-based simulation models naturally incorporate agent heterogeneity, and can account for any particular market microstructure; however, such models have gained only limited acceptance by the mainstream economic research community, due to concerns over how much general insight can be gleaned from simulating a particular configuration of agent behaviors. We address such concerns by employing game-theoretic criteria in behavior selection. We present a case study investigating a recent model from the finance literature proposed by Epstein and Schneider (ES), and its ability to explain the classic equity premium puzzle in risky asset pricing. For all market configurations that we examined, ambiguity-averse pricing was played with little or no probability in equilibrium. Moreover, none of the market configurations exhibited significant equity premia. Both our use of strategic equilibrium as a market composition concept, and the actions of our simulated market microstructure contribute to removing any equity premium. These findings underscore the value of checking that results from abstract representative-agent models are supportable in a higher-fidelity model where heterogeneity and strategic interactions are taken into account.     

Restructuring risk in credit default swaps: An empirical analysis

This paper estimates the price for restructuring risk in the US corporate bond market during 1999–2005. Comparing quotes from default swap (CDS) contracts with a restructuring event and without, we find that the average premium for restructuring risk represents 6%–8% of the swap rate without restructuring. We show that the restructuring premium depends on firm-specific balance-sheet and macroeconomic variables. And, when default swap rates without a restructuring event increase, the increase in restructuring premia is higher for low-credit-quality firms than for high-credit-quality firms. We propose a reduced-form arbitrage-free model for pricing default swaps that explicitly incorporates the distinction between restructuring and default events. A case study illustrating the model’s implementation is provided.     

A risk-based premium: What does it mean for DB plan sponsors?

This paper develops a risked-based premium calculation model for the insurance provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). It takes account of the pension fund’s and the plan sponsor’s investment policy and extends Chen (2011) by considering distress termination triggered by the sponsor’s underfunding. We empirically illustrate our theoretical pricing formula for the 100 biggest American DB sponsoring companies. Our result clearly casts doubt on the current practice where about 70% of the PBGC premiums charged are flat. We observe that the funding ratio and the leverage are the main risk factors in a risk-based premium calculation.     

修整保费——一个新的定价模型

在期望原理保费与个体风险的风险调整保费定价模型的基础上,引入修整系数β,得到了一个组合风险的定价模型—修整保费,从而解决了在大量个体风险并存的保险业务和多项投资中,如何合理地对组合风险进行定价的问题.     

A binomial model for valuing equity-linked policies embedding surrender options

The computation of the fair periodical premiums for equity-linked policies in a Cox–Ross–Rubinstein (CRR) [Cox, J.C., et al., 1979. Option pricing: A simplified approach. J. Financial Economics 7, 229–263] evaluation framework is computationally complex. In fact, despite we assume that the equity value evolves according to a CRR lattice, the dynamics of the reference fund made up of equities of the same kind is described by a non-recombining tree since, at each contribution date, a constant contribution is added to the fund value. We propose to overcome this problem by selecting representative values among all the effective reference fund values. Then, the fair periodical premiums for equity-linked policies embedding a surrender option and a minimum guarantee are computed following the usual backward-induction scheme coupled with linear interpolation.     

Marginal Indemnification Function formulation for optimal reinsurance

In this paper, we propose to combine the Marginal Indemnification Function (MIF) formulation and the Lagrangian dual method to solve optimal reinsurance model with distortion risk measure and distortion reinsurance premium principle. The MIF method exploits the absolute continuity of admissible indemnification functions and formulates optimal reinsurance model into a functional linear programming of determining an optimal measurable function valued over a bounded interval. The MIF method was recently introduced to analyze the reinsurance model but without premium budget constraint. In this paper, a Lagrangian dual method is applied to combine with MIF to solve for optimal reinsurance solutions under premium budget constraint. Compared with the existing literature, the proposed integrated MIF-based Lagrangian dual method provides a more technically convenient and transparent solution to the optimal reinsurance design. To demonstrate the practicality of the proposed method, analytical solution is derived on a particular reinsurance model that involves minimizing Conditional Value at Risk (a special case of distortion function) and with the reinsurance premium being determined by the inverse-S shaped distortion principle.     

调整保险费率模型下的破产概率

本文主要讨论当保险费率按公司的盈余进行适当的调整时,如何求破产概率的问题．     

Optimality of general reinsurance contracts under CTE risk measure

By formulating a constrained optimization model, we address the problem of optimal reinsurance design using the criterion of minimizing the conditional tail expectation (CTE) risk measure of the insurer’s total risk. For completeness, we analyze the optimal reinsurance model under both binding and unbinding reinsurance premium constraints. By resorting to the Lagrangian approach based on the concept of directional derivative, explicit and analytical optimal solutions are obtained in each case under some mild conditions. We show that pure stop-loss ceded loss function is always optimal. More interestingly, we demonstrate that ceded loss functions, that are not always non-decreasing, could be optimal. We also show that, in some cases, it is optimal to exhaust the entire reinsurance premium budget to determine the optimal reinsurance, while in other cases, it is rational to spend less than the prescribed reinsurance premium budget.     

Dynamic hybrid products in life insurance: Assessing the policyholders’ viewpoint

Dynamic hybrid life insurance products are intended to meet new consumer needs regarding stability in terms of guarantees as well as sufficient upside potential. In contrast to traditional participating or classical unit-linked life insurance products, the guarantee offered to the policyholders is achieved by a periodical rebalancing process between three funds: the policy reserves (i.e. the premium reserve stock, thus causing interaction effects with traditional participating life insurance contracts), a guarantee fund, and an equity fund. In this paper, we consider an insurer offering both, dynamic hybrid and traditional participating life insurance contracts and focus on the policyholders’ perspective. The results show that higher guarantees do not necessarily imply a higher willingness-to-pay, but that in case of dynamic hybrid contracts, a minimum guarantee level should be offered in order to ensure that the willingness-to-pay exceeds the minimum premium the insurer has to charge when selling the contract. In addition, strong interaction effects can be found between the two products, which particularly impact the willingness-to-pay of the dynamic hybrids.     

Risk Measure and Premium Distribution on Catastrophe Reinsurance

In this paper, we propose a new risk measure which is based on the Orlicz premium principle to characterize catastrophe risk premium. The intention is to develop a formulation strategy for Catastrophe Fund. The logarithm equivalent form of reinsurance premium is regarded as the retention of reinsurer, and the differential earnings between the reinsurance premium and the reinsurer's retention is accumulated as a part of Catastrophe Fund. We demonstrate that the aforementioned risk measure has some good properties, which are further confirmed by numerical simulations in R environment.     

Optimal surrender policy for variable annuity guarantees

This paper proposes a technique to derive the optimal surrender strategy for a variable annuity (VA) as a function of the underlying fund value. This approach is based on splitting the value of the VA into a European part and an early exercise premium following the work of Kim and Yu (1996) and Carr et al. (1992). The technique is first applied to the simplest VA with GMAB (path-independent benefits) and is then shown to be possibly generalized to the case when benefits are path-dependent. Fees are paid continuously as a fixed percentage of the fund value. Our approach is useful to investigate the impact of path-dependent benefits on surrender incentives.     

A new VRPPD model and a hybrid heuristic solution approach for e-tailing

We analyze a business model for e-supermarkets to enable multi-product sourcing capacity through co-opetition (collaborative competition). The logistics aspect of our approach is to design and execute a network system where “premium” goods are acquired from vendors at multiple locations in the supply network and delivered to customers. Our specific goals are to: (i) investigate the role of premium product offerings in creating critical mass and profit; (ii) develop a model for the multiple-pickup single-delivery vehicle routing problem in the presence of multiple vendors; and (iii) propose a hybrid solution approach. To solve the problem introduced in this paper, we develop a hybrid metaheuristic approach that uses a Genetic Algorithm for vendor selection and allocation, and a modified savings algorithm for the capacitated VRP with multiple pickup, single delivery and time windows (CVRPMPDTW). The proposed Genetic Algorithm guides the search for optimal vendor pickup location decisions, and for each generated solution in the genetic population, a corresponding CVRPMPDTW is solved using the savings algorithm. We validate our solution approach against published VRPTW solutions and also test our algorithm with Solomon instances modified for CVRPMPDTW.     

Designing and pricing guarantee options in defined contribution pension plans

The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) is pervasive among pension funds, due to demographic changes and macroeconomic pressures. In DB all risks are borne by the provider, while in plain vanilla DC all risks are borne by the beneficiary. However, for DC to provide income security some kind of guarantee is required. A minimum guarantee clause can be modeled as a put option written on some underlying reference portfolio and we develop a discrete model that selects the reference portfolio to minimize the cost of a guarantee. While the relation DB–DC is typically viewed as a binary one, the model shows how to price a wide range of guarantees creating a continuum between DB and DC. Integrating guarantee pricing with asset allocation decision is useful to both pension fund managers and regulators. The former are given a yardstick to assess if a given asset portfolio is fit-for-purpose; the latter can assess differences of specific reference funds with respect to the optimal one, signaling possible cases of moral hazard. We develop the model and report numerical results to illustrate its uses.     

相对损失函数下的倍度保费

传统的倍度保费公式利用均方损失函数估计特定保人的风险. 然而, 索取保费与真实保费之间的比例比它们差的绝对值更适合于衡量保费的公平性. 基于这一点, 我们提出了两种计算保费的损失函数: 均方相对损失函数和熵相对损失函数, 并且给出了倍度因子的估计公式及它们的性质.     

A modified insurance risk process with uncertainty

An insurance risk process is traditionally considered by describing the claim process via a renewal reward process and assuming the total premium to be proportional to the time with a constant ratio. It is usually modeled as a stochastic process such as the compound Poisson process, and historical data are collected and employed to estimate the corresponding parameters of probability distributions. However, there exists the case of lack of data such as for a new insurance product. An alternative way is to estimate the parameters based on experts’ subjective belief and information. Therefore, it is necessary to employ the uncertain process to model the insurance risk process. In this paper, we propose a modified insurance risk process in which both the claim process and the premium process are assumed to be renewal reward processes with uncertain factors. Then we give the inverse uncertainty distribution of the modified process at each time. On this basis, we derive the ruin index which has an explicit expression based on given uncertainty distributions.