Optimal reinsurance with regulatory initial capital and default risk

In a reinsurance contract, a reinsurer promises to pay the part of the loss faced by an insurer in exchange for receiving a reinsurance premium from the insurer. However, the reinsurer may fail to pay the promised amount when the promised amount exceeds the reinsurer’s solvency. As a seller of a reinsurance contract, the initial capital or reserve of a reinsurer should meet some regulatory requirements. We assume that the initial capital or reserve of a reinsurer is regulated by the value-at-risk (VaR) of its promised indemnity. When the promised indemnity exceeds the total of the reinsurer’s initial capital and the reinsurance premium, the reinsurer may fail to pay the promised amount or default may occur. In the presence of the regulatory initial capital and the counterparty default risk, we investigate optimal reinsurance designs from an insurer’s point of view and derive optimal reinsurance strategies that maximize the expected utility of an insurer’s terminal wealth or minimize the VaR of an insurer’s total retained risk. It turns out that optimal reinsurance strategies in the presence of the regulatory initial capital and the counterparty default risk are different both from optimal reinsurance strategies in the absence of the counterparty default risk and from optimal reinsurance strategies in the presence of the counterparty default risk but without the regulatory initial capital.     

Stable solutions for optimal reinsurance problems involving risk measures

The optimal reinsurance problem is a classic topic in actuarial mathematics. Recent approaches consider a coherent or expectation bounded risk measure and minimize the global risk of the ceding company under adequate constraints. However, there is no consensus about the risk measure that the insurer must use, since every risk measure presents advantages and shortcomings when compared with others.This paper deals with a discrete probability space and analyzes the stability of the optimal reinsurance with respect to the risk measure that the insurer uses. We will demonstrate that there is a “stable optimal retention” that will show no sensitivity, insofar as it will solve the optimal reinsurance problem for many risk measures, thus providing a very robust reinsurance plan. This stable optimal retention is a stop-loss contract, and it is easy to compute in practice. A fast linear time algorithm will be given and a numerical example presented.     

Optimal non-life reinsurance under Solvency II Regime

The optimal reinsurance contract is investigated from the perspective of an insurer who would like to minimise its risk exposure under Solvency II. Under this regulatory framework, the insurer is exposed to the retained risk, reinsurance premium and change in the risk margin requirement as a result of reinsurance. Depending on how the risk margin corresponding to the reserve risk is calculated, two optimal reinsurance problems are formulated. We show that the optimal reinsurance policy can be in the form of two layers. Further, numerical examples illustrate that the optimal two-layer reinsurance contracts are only slightly different under these two methodologies.     

How retention levels influence the variability of the total risk under reinsurance

Recently, Escudero and Ortega (Insur. Math. Econ. 43:255–262, 2008) have considered an extension of the largest claims reinsurance with arbitrary random retention levels. They have analyzed the effect of some dependencies on the Laplace transform of the retained total claim amount. In this note, we study how dependencies influence the variability of the retained and the reinsured total claim amount, under excess-loss and stop-loss reinsurance policies, with stochastic retention levels. Stochastic directional convexity properties, variability orderings, and bounds for the retained and the reinsured total risk are given. Some examples on the calculation of bounds for stop-loss premiums (i.e., the expected value of the reinsured total risk under this treaty) and for net premiums for the cedent company under excess-loss, and complementary results on convex comparisons of discounted values of benefits for the insurer from a portfolio with risks having random policy limits (deductibles) are derived.      

Optimal proportional reinsurance and investment for stochastic factor models

In this work we investigate the optimal proportional reinsurance-investment strategy of an insurance company which wishes to maximize the expected exponential utility of its terminal wealth in a finite time horizon. Our goal is to extend the classical Cramér–Lundberg model introducing a stochastic factor which affects the intensity of the claims arrival process, described by a Cox process, as well as the insurance and reinsurance premia. The financial market is supposed not influenced by the stochastic factor, hence it is independent on the insurance market. Using the classical stochastic control approach based on the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation we characterize the optimal strategy and provide a verification result for the value function via classical solutions to two backward partial differential equations. Existence and uniqueness of these solutions are discussed. Results under various premium calculation principles are illustrated and a new premium calculation rule is proposed in order to get more realistic strategies and to better fit our stochastic factor model. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to obtain sensitivity analyses.     

Optimal reinsurance under VaR and TVaR risk measures in the presence of reinsurer’s risk limit

In most studies on optimal reinsurance, little attention has been paid to controlling the reinsurer’s risk. However, real-world insurance markets always place a limit on coverage, otherwise the insurer will be subjected to under a heavy financial burden when the insured suffers a large unexpected covered loss. In this paper, we revisit the optimal reinsurance problem under the optimality criteria of VaR and TVaR risk measures when the constraints for the reinsurer’s risk exposure are presented. Two types of constraints are considered that have been proposed by Cummins and Mahul (2004) and Zhou et al. (2010), respectively. It is shown that two-layer reinsurance is always the optimal reinsurance policy under both VaR and TVaR risk measures and under both types of constraints. This implies that the two-layer reinsurance policy is more robust. Furthermore, the optimal quantity of ceded risk depends on the confidence level, the safety loading and the tolerance level, as well as on the relation between them.     

Optimal reinsurance with premium constraint under distortion risk measures

Recently distortion risk measure has been an interesting tool for the insurer to reflect its attitude toward risk when forming the optimal reinsurance strategy. Under the distortion risk measure, this paper discusses the reinsurance design with unbinding premium constraint and the ceded loss function in a general feasible region which requiring the retained loss function to be increasing and left-continuous. Explicit solution of the optimal reinsurance strategy is obtained by introducing a premium-adjustment function. Our result has the form of layer reinsurance with the mixture of normal reinsurance strategies in each layer. Finally, to illustrate the applicability of our results, we derive the optimal reinsurance solutions with premium constraint under two special distortion risk measures—VaR and TVaR.     

方差分保费原则下相依多险种模型的最优再保险

采用共同冲击型相依多险种模型刻画保险公司的索赔风险过程,按照方差分保费原则计算再保险费,研究最小化破产概率的再保险问题.通过扩散逼近并利用动态规划原理,得到了显式最优策略和值函数.与采用期望值分保费原则比较,发现最优分保形式和自留风险水平均不相同;与最大化期望指数效用的结果比较,发现最优分保比例除了与安全负载相关,还与索赔分布、计数过程以及直接保险费收入率c有关.最后,结合数值算例揭示了相依参数的动态影响以及最优策略与c的敏感相关性.     

Optimal reinsurance and investment strategies for insurer under interest rate and inflation risks

In this paper, we investigate an optimal reinsurance and investment problem for an insurer whose surplus process is approximated by a drifted Brownian motion. Proportional reinsurance is to hedge the risk of insurance. Interest rate risk and inflation risk are considered. We suppose that the instantaneous nominal interest rate follows an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process, and the inflation index is given by a generalized Fisher equation. To make the market complete, zero-coupon bonds and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) are included in the market. The financial market consists of cash, zero-coupon bond, TIPS and stock. We employ the stochastic dynamic programming to derive the closed-forms of the optimal reinsurance and investment strategies as well as the optimal utility function under the constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility maximization. Sensitivity analysis is given to show the economic behavior of the optimal strategies and optimal utility.     

Optimal reinsurance with a rescuing procedure

We consider a large insurance company whose reserve is modeled by a diffusion process. The management of the insurance company makes a decision on reinsurance in order to reduce the insurance risk. An optimal decision is the one which minimizes the expected time to reach a goal before the reserve reaches a ruin level. We introduce a rescuing procedure to deal with the case that the company is “too big to fail”. We disclose that the optimal decision of the management heavily depends on how much time the company needs to wait for rescuing when it gets in trouble.     

A BSDE-based approach for the optimal reinsurance problem under partial information

We investigate the optimal reinsurance problem under the criterion of maximizing the expected utility of terminal wealth when the insurance company has restricted information on the loss process. We propose a risk model with claim arrival intensity and claim sizes distribution affected by an unobservable environmental stochastic factor. By filtering techniques (with marked point process observations), we reduce the original problem to an equivalent stochastic control problem under full information. Since the classical Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman approach does not apply, due to the infinite dimensionality of the filter, we choose an alternative approach based on Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (BSDEs). Precisely, we characterize the value process and the optimal reinsurance strategy in terms of the unique solution to a BSDE driven by a marked point process.     

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.     

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.     

Optimal proportional reinsurance and investment with minimum probability of ruin

The paper concerns a problem of optimal reinsurance and investment in order to minimizing the probability of ruin. In the whole paper, the cedent’s surplus is allowed to invest in a risk-free asset and a risky asset and the company’s risk is reduced through proportional reinsurance, while in addition the claim process is assumed to follow a Brownian motion with drift. By solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations, the optimal reinsurance-investment strategy is derived. The presented results generalize those by Taksar [1].     

Optimal investment and reinsurance of an insurer with model uncertainty

We introduce a novel approach to optimal investment–reinsurance problems of an insurance company facing model uncertainty via a game theoretic approach. The insurance company invests in a capital market index whose dynamics follow a geometric Brownian motion. The risk process of the company is governed by either a compound Poisson process or its diffusion approximation. The company can also transfer a certain proportion of the insurance risk to a reinsurance company by purchasing reinsurance. The optimal investment–reinsurance problems with model uncertainty are formulated as two-player, zero-sum, stochastic differential games between the insurance company and the market. We provide verification theorems for the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman–Isaacs (HJBI) solutions to the optimal investment–reinsurance problems and derive closed-form solutions to the problems.     

Optimal reinsurance and investment with unobservable claim size and intensity

We consider the optimal reinsurance and investment problem in an unobservable Markov-modulated compound Poisson risk model, where the intensity and jump size distribution are not known but have to be inferred from the observations of claim arrivals. Using a recently developed result from filtering theory, we reduce the partially observable control problem to an equivalent problem with complete observations. Then using stochastic control theory, we get the closed form expressions of the optimal strategies which maximize the expected exponential utility of terminal wealth. In particular, we investigate the effect of the safety loading and the unobservable factors on the optimal reinsurance strategies. With the help of a generalized Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation where the derivative is replaced by Clarke’s generalized gradient as in Bäuerle and Rieder (2007), we characterize the value function, which helps us verify that the strategies we constructed are optimal.     

Optimal financing and dividend control of the insurance company with proportional reinsurance policy

We consider the optimal control problem of the insurance company with proportional reinsurance policy. The management of the company controls the reinsurance rate, dividends payout as well as the equity issuance processes to maximize the expected present value of the dividends minus the equity issuance until the time of bankruptcy. This is the first time that the financing process in an insurance model has been considered, which is more realistic. To find the solution of the mixed singular-regular control problem, we firstly construct two categories of suboptimal models, one is the classical model without equity issuance, the other never goes bankrupt by equity issuance. Then we identify the value functions and the optimal strategies corresponding to the suboptimal models depending on the relationships between the coefficients.     

Optimal financing and dividend control of the insurance company with excess-of-loss reinsurance policy

In this paper, we consider an optimal financing and dividend control problem of an insurance company. The management of the insurance company controls the dividends payout, equity issuance and the excess-of-loss reinsurance policy. In our model, the dividends are assumed to be paid out continuously, which is of interest from the perspective of financial modeling. The objective is to find the strategy which maximizes the expected present values of the dividends payout minus the equity issuance up to the time of ruin. We solve the optimal control problem and identify the optimal strategy by constructing two categories of suboptimal control problems.