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Journal of Risk & Insurance

Impact factor: 1.237 5-Year impact factor: 1.39 Print ISSN: 0022-4367 Online ISSN: 1539-6975 Publisher: Wiley Blackwell (Blackwell Publishing)

Subjects: Business, Finance, Economics

Most recent papers:

  • Effects Of Prescription Drug Insurance On Hospitalization And Mortality: Evidence From Medicare Part D.
    Robert Kaestner, Cuping Schiman, G. Caleb Alexander.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 19, 2017
    We used Medicare administrative data (2002–2009) and an instrumental variables design that exploits the natural experiment created by the implementation of Medicare Part D to estimate the effect of prescription drug coverage insurance on the use and costs of inpatient services. We find that gaining prescription drug insurance through Part D caused approximately a 4 percent decrease in hospital admission rate, a 2–5 percent decrease in Medicare inpatient payments per person, and a 10–15 percent decrease in inpatient charges. Among specific types of admissions, gaining insurance was associated with significant decreases in admissions for CHF and COPD.
    October 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12229   open full text
  • Insurers And Lenders As Monitors During Securities Litigation: Evidence From D&O Insurance Premiums, Interest Rates, And Litigation Costs.
    Dain C. Donelson, Christopher G. Yust.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 19, 2017
    This study examines whether directors’ and officers’ insurers and lenders effectively monitor securities litigation and respond through pricing before case outcomes are known. By “monitoring,” we refer to tracking case progress and obtaining information from the insured (defendant) firm and its counsel prior to case resolution. We find that insurers and lenders increase rates, and that this effect is almost completely isolated to firms with cases that eventually settle. We confirm that this response is reasonable as settled cases are associated with lower future earnings, while there is generally no relation between future earnings and dismissed cases. As direct costs appear low, our results suggest that most costs are indirect in the form of reputational damage. Overall, our results suggest that researchers and policymakers interested in litigation should focus on settled cases, which are the only cases with material long‐term costs.
    October 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12231   open full text
  • How Cellphone Bans Affect Automobile Insurance Markets.
    J. Bradley Karl, Charles Nyce.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 19, 2017
    In this article, we examine the effect of laws prohibiting the hand‐held use of a cellphone while driving on the automobile insurance market. Our research is motivated by prior studies that present evidence that the enactment of such laws alters drivers’ behaviors in ways that reduce the risk of automobile accidents. We posit that that, by extension, these laws should also lead to reductions in the amount of losses paid by private passenger automobile physical damage insurers. Our analysis indicates that the enactment of a ban on the hand‐held use of a cellphone while driving reduces the incurred losses and incurred loss ratios of automobile insurers by approximately 3 percent, suggesting that these bans have important economic consequences not previously documented in the literature. Additional analysis suggests that hand‐held cellphone bans eventually lead to incremental reductions in premiums, but we do not observe these reductions in premiums until a couple of years following the enactment of a ban. Our analysis of automobile insurance losses also represents a departure from most prior studies of cellphone bans and therefore contributes to the ongoing debate in the public health literature regarding the extent to which hand‐held cellphone bans have implications for traffic safety.
    September 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12224   open full text
  • Multivariate Almost Stochastic Dominance.
    Ilia Tsetlin, Robert L. Winkler.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 23, 2017
    Almost stochastic dominance allows small violations of stochastic dominance rules to avoid situations where most decision makers prefer one alternative to another but stochastic dominance cannot rank them. We present the concepts of multivariate almost stochastic dominance and multivariate almost nth‐degree risk and their connections with a preference for combining good with bad. Then, we show how a preference for combining good with bad can be applied to obtain various comparative statics results, and we extend our approach to risk‐prone (convex) stochastic dominance, which relates to the opposite preference, for combining good with good and bad with bad.
    August 23, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12222   open full text
  • Financing Recovery After Disasters: Explaining Community Credit Market Responses to Severe Events.
    Benjamin L. Collier, Volodymyr O. Babich.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 23, 2017
    Credit provides a means for uninsured households and businesses to manage disaster losses, but access to credit may be tenuous after severe events. Using lender fixed effects models, we examine how natural disasters affect the amount of credit supplied by community lenders in developing and emerging economies. We find that disasters reduce lending. We consider two potential causes of lending reductions: (1) disasters reduce expected returns on loans made after the event or (2) capital constraints (lenders’ difficulty replacing equity lost during the event). We develop a dynamic model that informs our empirical identification of these causes and conclude that capital constraints cause observed credit contractions. We also examine the effects of insurance market development and find evidence that insurance preserves the creditworthiness of borrowers. Our results demonstrate pervasive disaster‐related credit supply shocks in developing and emerging economies and identify new insurance market opportunities.
    August 23, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12221   open full text
  • CEO Inside Debt and Risk Taking: Evidence From Property–Liability Insurance Firms.
    Andreas Milidonis, Takeshi Nishikawa, Jeungbo Shim.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 21, 2017
    We examine the incentive effects of CEO inside debt holdings (pensions and deferred compensation) on risk taking using the sample of U.S. publicly traded property–liability insurers. To represent managerial risk taking, we employ value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES), which capture extreme movements in the lower tail of insurer stock return distribution. We also estimate firm default risk, equity volatilities, and insurance‐related risk as alternative measures of risk taking. We document that inside debt represents a significant component of CEOs’ compensation in the insurance industry. We find that there is a significant and negative relationship between CEO inside debt holdings and risk‐taking behavior. The results suggest that the structure of executive debt‐like compensation could be a potential method of reducing managers’ risk‐taking incentives.
    July 21, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12220   open full text
  • Risk Governance In The Insurance Sector—Determinants And Consequences In An International Sample.
    Shane Magee, Cornelia Schilling, Elizabeth Sheedy.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 17, 2017
    We analyze the relation between risk governance, risk, and performance measures for a global sample of 107 insurance companies from 2004 to 2012. Our risk governance index (RGI) covers several Solvency II provisions and includes the existence of chief risk officer on the executive committee, risk committee characteristics, and board industry experience. We find that in the crisis period 2008–2009, firms with a higher RGI generally have lower expected default frequency. We conclude that during noncrisis years, risk governance does not have a risk‐reducing effect but is positively associated with buy‐and‐hold returns, risk‐adjusted performance measures, and Tobin's Q. Our findings therefore support the role of risk governance as a business enabler rather than inhibitor. Insurance companies typically upgrade their risk governance following a negative shock, especially in countries that are well regulated and have weaker shareholder rights.
    July 17, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12218   open full text
  • On The Robustness Of Higher Order Risk Preferences.
    Cary Deck, Harris Schlesinger.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 14, 2017
    Economists have begun to recognize the role that higher order risk preferences play in a variety of settings. As such, several experiments have documented the degree of prudence, temperance, and, to a lesser extent, edginess and bentness that laboratory subjects exhibit. More recently, researchers have argued that higher order risk preferences generally conform to mixed risk‐averse and mixed risk‐loving patterns that arise from a preference for disaggregating or aggregating harms, respectively. This article examines the robustness of this pattern in three ways. First, it attempts to directly replicate previous results with compound lotteries over monetary outcomes. Second, it compares behavior in compound lotteries with behavior in reduced‐form lotteries. And third, it evaluates choices over monetary and nonmonetary risks. While previous results are replicated for compound lotteries over monetary outcomes and aggregate behavior with reduced‐form lotteries has a similar pattern, individuals clearly treat compound and reduced‐form lotteries differently. Further, behavior differs between monetary and nonmonetary outcomes.
    July 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12217   open full text
  • The Simple Analytics Of Job Displacement Insurance.
    Donald O. Parsons.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 14, 2017
    Job displacement is a threat to the earnings of long‐tenured workers through (1) unemployment spells and (2) reduced reemployment wages. Although full insurance requires both unemployment benefits and wage insurance, supply difficulties limit actual‐loss insurance, and separation packages include partial unemployment insurance and scheduled (fixed sum) severance pay. The design of this two‐dimensional package requires a systems approach as well as a generalized replacement ratio measure of adequacy. Job search moral hazard and layoff moral hazard (firing costs) introduce serious contracting concerns. Economic theory provides a guide to the integration of these insurance instruments in this complex planning environment.
    June 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12216   open full text
  • Credit and Systemic Risks in the Financial Services Sector: Evidence From the 2008 Global Crisis.
    Jean‐François Bégin, Mathieu Boudreault, Delia Alexandra Doljanu, Geneviève Gauthier.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 11, 2017
    We develop a portfolio credit risk model that includes firm‐specific Markov‐switching regimes as well as individual stochastic and endogenous recovery rates. Using weekly credit default swap premiums for 35 financial firms, we analyze the credit risk of each of these companies and their statistical linkages, putting emphasis on the 2005–2012 period. Moreover, we study the systemic risk affecting both the banking and insurance subsectors.
    May 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12210   open full text
  • Moral Hazard, Risk Sharing, and the Optimal Pool Size.
    Frauke Bieberstein, Eberhard Feess, José F. Fernando, Florian Kerzenmacher, Jörg Schiller.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 26, 2017
    We examine the optimal size of risk pools with moral hazard. In risk pools, the effective share of the own loss borne is the sum of the direct share (the retention rate) and the indirect share borne as residual claimant. In a model with identical individuals with mixed risk‐averse utility functions, we show that the effective share required to implement a specific effort increases in the pool size. This is a downside of larger pools as it, ceteris paribus, reduces risk sharing. However, we find that the benefit from diversifying the risk in larger pools always outweighs the downside of a higher effective share. We conclude that, absent transaction costs, the optimal pool size converges to infinity. In our basic model, we restrict attention to binary effort levels, but we show that our results extend to a model with continuous effort choice.
    April 26, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12211   open full text
  • Corporate Pensions and the Maturity Structure of Debt.
    Yijia Lin, Sheen Liu, Jifeng Yu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 26, 2017
    In this article, we investigate the role of pension obligations, the most significant off‐balance‐sheet item, in determining corporate debt maturity and spreads. We begin by showing a significant and robust positive relationship between pension liabilities and corporate short‐term debt ratio. We also find that more pension obligations cause a significant increase in the cost of debt, but this effect is mitigated by short‐maturity debt. Overall, our study shows that short‐term debt can reduce asymmetric information costs related to pensions.
    April 26, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12215   open full text
  • Precautionary Investment in Wealth and Health.
    Desu Liu, Mario Menegatti.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 12, 2017
    This article studies how health and wealth investments react to the presence of random returns, distinguishing the case where only the level of health investment is chosen from the case where both health and wealth investments are chosen. We show that this reaction depends mainly on certain features of preferences: cross‐prudence/imprudence in wealth, cross‐prudence/imprudence in health, and the value of the indexes of relative prudence in wealth and in health being larger or smaller than the threshold of 2. We also show the role of Edgeworth–Pareto substitutability/complementarity between wealth and health investments in determining optimal choices.
    April 12, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12212   open full text
  • Mortality Dependence and Longevity Bond Pricing: A Dynamic Factor Copula Mortality Model With the GAS Structure.
    Hua Chen, Richard D. MacMinn, Tao Sun.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 10, 2017
    Modeling mortality dependence for multiple populations has significant implications for mortality/longevity risk management. A natural way to assess multivariate dependence is to use copula models. The application of copula models in the multipopulation mortality analysis, however, is still in its infancy. In this article, we present a dynamic multipopulation mortality model based on a two‐factor copula and capture the time‐varying dependence using the generalized autoregressive score (GAS) framework. Our model is simple and flexible in terms of model specification and is widely applicable to high dimension data. Using the Swiss Re Kortis longevity trend bond as an example, we use our model to estimate the probability distribution of principal reduction and some risk measures such as probability of first loss, conditional expected loss, and expected loss. Due to the similarity in the structure and design of CAT bonds and mortality/longevity bonds, we borrow CAT bond pricing techniques for mortality/longevity bond pricing. We find that our pricing model generates par spreads that are close to the actual spreads of previously issued mortality/longevity bonds.
    April 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12214   open full text
  • Endogenous Insolvency in the Rothschild–Stiglitz Model.
    Wanda Mimra, Achim Wambach.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 27, 2017
    Even 30 years after Rothschild and Stiglitz's () seminal work on competitive insurance markets with adverse selection, existence and characterization of the equilibrium outcome are still an open issue. We model a basic extension to the Rothschild and Stiglitz () model: we endogenize up‐front capital of insurers. Under limited liability, low up‐front capital gives rise to an aggregate endogenous insolvency risk, which introduces an externality among customers of an insurer (Faynzilberg, 2006). It is shown that an equilibrium with the second‐best efficient Miyazaki–Wilson–Spence allocation always exists.
    March 27, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12206   open full text
  • Why Do Firms Use Insurance to Fund Worker Health Benefits? The Role of Corporate Finance.
    Christina M. Dalton, Sara B. Holland.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 23, 2017
    When a firm offers health benefits to workers, it exposes the firm to the risk of making payments when workers get sick. A firm can either pay health expenses out of its general assets, keeping the risk inside the firm, or it can purchase insurance, shifting the risk outside the firm. Using data on insurance decisions, we find that smaller firms, firms with more investment opportunities, and firms that face a convex tax schedule are more likely to hedge the risk of health benefit payments. We show how firms trade off the benefits that come from financing and investment characteristics with the costs of regulation when choosing insurance. We provide understanding of how firms’ policy and financial characteristics affect firm outcomes as the Affordable Care Act provisions impacting plan funding continue to evolve.
    March 23, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12207   open full text
  • Ambiguity and Insurance: Capital Requirements and Premiums.
    Simon Dietz, Oliver Walker.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 23, 2017
    Many insurance contracts are contingent on events such as hurricanes, terrorist attacks, or political upheavals, whose probabilities are ambiguous. This article offers a theory to underpin the large body of empirical evidence showing that higher premiums are charged under ambiguity. We model a (re)insurer that maximizes profit subject to a survival constraint that is sensitive to the range of estimates of the probability of ruin, as well as the insurer's attitude toward this ambiguity. We characterize when one book of insurance is more ambiguous than another and general circumstances in which a more ambiguous book requires at least as large a capital holding. We subsequently derive several explicit formulae for the price of insurance contracts under ambiguity, each of which identifies the extra ambiguity load.
    March 23, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12208   open full text
  • On the Failure (Success) of the Markets for Longevity Risk Transfer.
    Richard MacMinn, Patrick Brockett.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 15, 2017
    Longevity risk is the chance that people will live longer than expected. That potential increase in life expectancy exposes insurers and pension funds to the risk of not having sufficient funds to pay a longer stream of annuity benefits than promised. Longevity bonds and forwards provide insurers and pension funds with financial market instruments designed to hedge the longevity risk that these organization face. The European Investment Bank and World Bank have both discussed longevity bond issues, but those issues have failed due to insufficient demand. Forward contracts have also been created, but that market remains dormant. The extant literature suggests that these failures may be due to design or pricing problems. In this article the analysis shows that the market failure is instead due to a moral hazard problem.
    March 15, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12205   open full text
  • SM Bonds—A New Product for Managing Longevity Risk.
    Piet Jong, Shauna Ferris.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 22, 2017
    A new type of retirement bond is proposed called an SM bond. SM bonds are long dated government bonds divisible into two parts: a survivorship (S) part and a mortality (M) part. Each SM bond is associated with a particular age. SM bonds associated with a particular age are only purchasable by (originators) of that age. The SM bond is then splittable into an S and M component. The S part must be retained by the originator, who receives the face value of the bond if he/she is alive at maturity. For originators who die prior to the maturity date, the maturity value of the SM bond is assigned to a mortality pool. The holder of the M part of the bond receives the annual bond coupon, and at maturity a pro rata share of the mortality pool. M bonds are tradable: holders can sell their M bonds to anyone, at any time. It is envisaged different age bonds are issued every year for ages say 30–64 each with say a 35‐year term. The market will be regularly informed about the mortality experience, and the market price of the M bonds will vary over time to reflect that experience.
    February 22, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12203   open full text
  • Modeling Multicountry Longevity Risk With Mortality Dependence: A Lévy Subordinated Hierarchical Archimedean Copulas Approach.
    Wenjun Zhu, Ken Seng Tan, Chou‐Wen Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 09, 2017
    This article proposes a new copula model known as the Lévy subordinated hierarchical Archimedean copulas (LSHAC) for multicountry mortality dependence modeling. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first article to apply the LSHAC model to mortality studies. Through an extensive empirical analysis on modeling mortality experiences of 13 countries, we demonstrate that the LSHAC model, which has the advantage of capturing the geographical structure of mortality data, yields better fit, compared to the elliptical copulas. In addition, the proposed LSHAC model generates out‐of‐sample forecasts with smaller standard deviations, when compared to other benchmark copula models. The LSHAC model also confirms that there is an association between geographical locations and dependence of the overall mortality improvement. These results yield new insights into future longevity risk management. Finally, the model is used to price a hypothetical survival index swap written on a weighted mortality index. The results highlight the importance of dependence modeling in managing longevity risk and reducing population basis risk.
    February 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12198   open full text
  • Hedging Longevity Risk in Life Settlements Using Biomedical Research‐Backed Obligations.
    Richard D. MacMinn, Nan Zhu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 02, 2017
    In the life settlement market, mortality risk is transferred from life insurance policyholders to third‐party life settlement firms. This risk transfer occurs in conjunction with an information transfer that is relevant not only for pricing, but also for risk management. In this analysis, we compare the efficiency of two different hedging instruments in managing the mortality risk of the life settlement firm. First, we claim and then demonstrate that conventional longevity‐linked securities do not perform as effectively in the secondary life market, that is, life settlement market, as in the annuity and pension markets due to the basis risk that exists between the general population and the life settlement subgroup. Second, we show that the unique risk exposure of the life settlement firm can be specifically targeted using a new instrument—the biomedical research‐backed obligations. Our finding connects two seemingly independent markets and can promote the healthy development of both.
    February 02, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12200   open full text
  • Postclaim Underwriting And The Verification Of Insured Information: Evidence From The Life Insurance Industry.
    Jill M. Bisco, Kathleen A. McCullough, Charles M. Nyce.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 02, 2017
    This research investigates information verification by life insurers with respect to postclaim underwriting through denied and resisted claims. We provide a theoretical model to explore the optimal strategy for insurers regarding preloss versus postclaim underwriting. Using differential cost structures, the model predicts that it is possible for some insurers to follow a strategy of postclaim underwriting while others do not. Evidence of this is found in the empirical analysis. Insurers that postclaim underwrite are identified by a decrease in underwriting expenses and an increase in the claim investigation expense in conjunction with increases in denied and resisted claims.
    February 02, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12189   open full text
  • Convergence Of Capital And Insurance Markets: Consistent Pricing Of Index‐Linked Catastrophe Loss Instruments.
    Nadine Gatzert, Sebastian Pokutta, Nikolai Vogl.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 27, 2017
    Index‐linked catastrophe loss instruments have become increasingly attractive for investors and play an important role in risk management. Their payout is tied to the development of an underlying industry loss index (reflecting losses from natural catastrophes) and may additionally depend on the ceding company's loss. Depending on the instrument, pricing is currently not entirely transparent and does not assume a liquid market. We show how arbitrage‐free and market‐consistent prices for such instruments can be derived by overcoming the crucial point of tradability of the underlying processes. We develop suitable approximation and replication techniques and—based on these—provide explicit pricing formulas using cat bond prices. Finally, we use empirical examples to illustrate the suggested approximations.
    January 27, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12191   open full text
  • Pension Risk Management in the Enterprise Risk Management Framework.
    Yijia Lin, Richard D. MacMinn, Ruilin Tian, Jifeng Yu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 24, 2017
    This article presents an enterprise risk management (ERM) model for a firm that is composed of a portfolio of capital investment projects and a defined benefit (DB) plan for its workforce. The firm faces the project, operational, and hazard risks from its investment projects as well as the financial and longevity risks from its DB plan. The firm maximizes its capital market value net of pension contributions subject to constraints that control project, operational, hazard, financial, and longevity risks as well as an overall risk. The analysis illustrates the importance of integrating pension risk into the firm's ERM program by comparing firm value with and without managing pension risk with other risks in an ERM program. An ERM program considering pension effect integrates the risks of the operation and pension divisions and, thus, achieves diversification benefits between and within these two divisions. We also show how pension hedging strategies can impact the firm's net value under the ERM framework. While the existing literature suggests that a longevity swap is less expensive than a pension buy‐out because the latter is more capital intensive, this analysis shows that the buy‐out is more effective in increasing firm value.
    January 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12196   open full text
  • Prudence and Precautionary Effort.
    Kangoh Lee.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 24, 2017
    It is well known that prudence increases precautionary effort in the presence of future uncertain income. This result is intuitive, as prudent individuals take more caution to reduce the probability of accident in response to income uncertainty. However, this known result holds true only in a two‐state model with either a loss or no loss occurring. With more than two states of the world, losses of different magnitudes occur, and precautionary effort may not reduce the probabilities of all losses. The effect of income uncertainty on precautionary effort hinges on how it affects the probability distribution of losses, and prudence is neither necessary nor sufficient for more precaution. The analysis establishes an intuitive condition under which prudence increases precaution and another one under which prudence decreases it.
    January 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12204   open full text
  • Robust Mean–Variance Hedging of Longevity Risk.
    Hong Li, Anja Waegenaere, Bertrand Melenberg.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 24, 2017
    Parameter uncertainty and model misspecification can have a significant impact on the performance of hedging strategies for longevity risk. To mitigate this lack of robustness, we propose an approach in which the optimal hedge is determined by optimizing the worst‐case value of the objective function with respect to a set of plausible probability distributions. In the empirical analysis, we consider an insurer who hedges longevity risk using a longevity bond, and we compare the worst‐case (robust) optimal hedges with the classical optimal hedges in which parameter uncertainty and model misspecification are ignored. We find that unless the risk premium on the bond is close to zero, the robust optimal hedge is significantly less sensitive to variations in the underlying probability distribution. Moreover, the robust optimal hedge on average outperforms the nominal optimal hedge unless the probability distribution used by the nominal hedger is close to the true distribution.
    January 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12201   open full text
  • Are Green Car Drivers Friendly Drivers? A Study Of Taiwan's Automobile Insurance Market.
    Jerry S. Huang, Kili C. Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 18, 2017
    By integrating claims data from Taiwan's compulsory liability insurance with a unique data set on driving mileage records for each car, this article examines whether green car drivers have lower accident risk. We find that after controlling for the mileage driven per car, the traffic accident risk of green car drivers is significantly lower. Our empirical evidence also confirms that green car drivers are, on average, high‐mileage drivers. Moreover, driving more results in a higher accident probability for green car drivers despite their being lower‐risk drivers. The policy implications are discussed.
    January 18, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12202   open full text
  • Loss Shocks in Export Credit Insurance Markets: Evidence From a Global Insurance Group.
    Koen J. M. van der Veer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 11, 2017
    Private export credit insurance—covering the risk of nonpayment—plays an important role in facilitating international trade, especially within Europe. Due to lack of data, however, little is known about the influence of loss shocks on export credit insurance markets. This article studies the effect of claims on the availability and premium of export credit insurance, using unique bilateral country‐level data covering worldwide insurance underwriting from 1992 to 2006 by a leading trade credit insurance group. Applying fixed effects models at the country subsidiary level, I find that a doubling of the claims ratio on insured exports between a pair of countries results, on average, in a decline in the subsidiary's share of bilateral exports insured by about 11 percent and rise in premium level by about 4 percent. These claims effects increase when the insurer makes a loss and rise with the size of the loss. Importantly, evidence shows that an extreme loss shock in one market also increases the claims sensitivity of insurance coverage on exports to other markets, suggesting a role for capital constraints. Overall, these results help our understanding of potential trade finance constraints in times of crisis, such as during the 2008–2009 global trade collapse.
    January 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12197   open full text
  • A Mean‐Preserving Increase in Ambiguity and Portfolio Choices.
    Yi‐Chieh Huang, Larry Y. Tzeng.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 11, 2017
    This article investigates under what conditions an increase in ambiguity reduces demand for an uncertain asset (or raises demand for coinsurance). We find that the comparative statics of ambiguity and of risks have structural similarities under the smooth ambiguity aversion model (Klibanoff, Marinacci, and Mukerji, ). The determinant condition on ambiguity preferences is analogous to that on risk preferences. However, the comparative statics have fundamental differences under the α‐maxmin model (Ghirardato, Maccheroni, and Marinacci, ). When relative risk aversion is less than 1, only an increase in ambiguity, which broadens support for an investor's belief in the probability of the return distribution in the manner of a strong increase in risk, can reduce demand for an uncertain asset.
    January 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12188   open full text
  • The Cross‐Section of Asia‐Pacific Mortality Dynamics: Implications for Longevity Risk Sharing.
    Enrico Biffis, Yijia Lin, Andreas Milidonis.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 10, 2017
    We study the dynamics of longevity risk across a subset of countries in the Asia‐Pacific (APAC) region. We use hand‐collected and existing data on age‐specific mortality rates from emerging and developed economies to understand how secular changes in mortality vary within and across APAC countries. We use our results to identify cross‐hedging opportunities among longevity risk exposures in the APAC region. We also introduce k‐forward contracts, which offer natural risk‐sharing opportunities to hedgers in different countries. We consider the example of Korea and Japan as a case study.
    January 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12194   open full text
  • Dynamic Frailty Count Process in Insurance: A Unified Framework for Estimation, Pricing, and Forecasting.
    Yang Lu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 10, 2017
    We study count processes in insurance, in which the underlying risk factor is time varying and unobservable. The factor follows an autoregressive gamma process, and the resulting model generalizes the static Poisson‐Gamma model and allows for closed form expression for the posterior Bayes (linear or nonlinear) premium. Moreover, the estimation and forecasting can be conducted within the same framework in a rather efficient way. An example of automobile insurance pricing illustrates the ability of the model to capture the duration dependent, nonlinear impact of past claims on future ones and the improvement of the Bayes pricing method compared to the linear credibility approach.
    January 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12190   open full text
  • Multi Cumulative Prospect Theory and the Demand for Cliquet‐Style Guarantees.
    Jochen Ruß, Stefan Schelling.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 10, 2017
    Expected Utility Theory (EUT) and Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) face problems explaining preferences of long‐term investors. Previous research motivates that the subjective utility of a long‐term investment also depends on interim value changes. Therefore, we propose an approach that we call Multi Cumulative Prospect Theory. It is based on CPT and considers annual changes in the contract values. As a first application, we can show that in contrast to EUT and CPT, this approach is able to explain the demand for guaranteed products with lock‐in features, which in this framework generate a higher subjective utility than products without or with simpler guarantees.
    January 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jori.12195   open full text
  • Dynamic Moral Hazard: A Longitudinal Examination of Automobile Insurance in Canada.
    Peng Shi, Wei Zhang, Jean‐Philippe Boucher.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 20, 2016
    This article examines moral hazard in the context of dynamic contracting in automobile insurance. Economic theory shows that experience rating of insurers results in state dependence of driving behavior under moral hazard. The empirical analysis is performed using a longitudinal data set from a Canadian automobile insurer. We employ dynamic nonlinear panel data models to distinguish the structural and spurious state dependence, and thus moral hazard and selection on unobservables. As a measure of the riskiness of driving, we consider the frequency, the number, as well as the cost of claims for the policyholder. We find that the state dependence in claim cost reflects both structural and spurious relationships, supporting the moral hazard hypothesis. However, the state dependence in claim occurrence is solely due to unobserved heterogeneity.
    December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12172   open full text
  • What Drives Tort Reform Legislation? An Analysis Of State Decisions To Restrict Liability Torts.
    Yiling Deng, George Zanjani.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 12, 2016
    This article studies the timing of state‐level tort reform enactments between 1971 and 2005. Using discrete‐time hazard models, we find the level of litigation activity—as measured by incurred liability insurance losses, the number of lawyers, and tort cases commenced—to be the most important and robust determinant of tort reform adoption. Political‐institutional factors and regional effects—such as Republican control of the state government, single‐party control of the legislature and governorship, and a (relatively) conservative political ideology among a state's Democrats—are also associated with quicker reform adoption.
    December 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12186   open full text
  • Actuarial Independence and Managerial Discretion.
    Shinichi Kamiya, Andreas Milidonis.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 12, 2016
    Appointed actuaries are responsible for estimating the largest liability on property–casualty insurance companies’ balance sheet. Actuarial independence is crucial in safeguarding accurate estimates, where this independence is self‐regulated by actuarial professional institutions. However, professional conflicts of interest arise when appointed actuaries also hold an officer position within the same firm, as officer actuaries also face managerial incentives. Using a sample of U.S. insurers that employ in‐house appointed actuaries from 2007 to 2014, we find evidence that officer actuaries have different reserving practices than nonofficer actuaries. This difference in reserving is associated with tax shielding and earnings management incentives. Results are consistent with managerial discretion dominating actuarial independence; they are economically significant and should be of concern to regulators and professional institutions.
    December 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12199   open full text
  • Directors’ and Officers’ Liability Insurance, Independent Director Behavior, and Governance Effect.
    Ning Jia, Xuesong Tang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 12, 2016
    We examine the effect of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance (D&O insurance) on the behavior of independent directors and the effectiveness of their governance role. Using a unique data set, we find a negative relation between D&O insurance and personal board meeting attendance by independent directors and a positive relation between D&O insurance and meeting attendance by authorized representatives. Content analysis of independent director opinion reports indicates that D&O insurance encourages independent directors to behave less responsibly. Insured independent directors are also more likely to be busy. Collectively, D&O insurance reduces the effectiveness of independent directors in corporate governance.
    December 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12193   open full text
  • Mortality Leads and Lags.
    Andreas Milidonis, Maria Efthymiou.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 12, 2016
    Mortality risk varies geographically, especially in the Asia‐Pacific (APAC) region, where economic development is quite diverse. We present a newly collected data set on aggregate population mortality from 11 countries in APAC, which we rank based on their economic development. Using lead–lag analysis, we identify short‐term predictability in mortality risk across countries. Mortality improvements seem to appear faster in more developed than less developed countries. Such predictability is useful for longevity risk financing and in producing cross‐country mortality indices. We propose ways in which our results can benefit institutions manage their exposure in APAC mortality and longevity risk.
    December 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12187   open full text
  • Health State Transitions and Longevity Effects on Retirees’ Optimal Annuitization.
    Jing Ai, Patrick L. Brockett, Linda L. Golden, Wei Zhu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 11, 2016
    The interplay between longevity risk and health state transitions for retirees’ optimal annuitization decisions is investigated. Using a life‐cycle framework incorporating wealth levels, bequest motives, and consumption floors created by government subsidies, we examine how increased longevity in conjunction with an individual's health state transition process impacts annuity purchase decisions. Health state transition matrices are estimated from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) data. The effects of increased longevity on annuitization decisions are considered when longevity is both accompanied by increased time spent in healthier states (morbidity compression) or experienced by more time in unhealthy states (morbidity expansion). We find that retirees’ annuity demand is affected by wealth, initial health status, and expansion or compression of morbidity. Wealthier retirees have higher annuity demand when health shocks are considered, and increased longevity increases demand even more when retirees expect an expansion or slight morbidity compression. With health shocks and expectations of severe morbidity compression considered, the opposite effect might occur. Thus, an annuity can help retirees hedge health shock costs when slight compression or expansion of morbidity occurs. For retirees with lower wealth, the consumption floor provided by governmental subsidies will create a decreased propensity to annuitize.
    December 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12168   open full text
  • Pricing Buy‐Ins and Buy‐Outs.
    Yijia Lin, Tianxiang Shi, Ayşe Arik.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 06, 2016
    Pension buy‐ins and buy‐outs have become an important aspect of managing pension risk in recent years. As a step toward understanding these pension de‐risking instruments, we develop models for pricing investment risk and longevity risk embedded in pension buy‐ins and buy‐outs. We also bring a contingent‐claims framework to price credit risk of buy‐in bulk annuities. Overall, our model can be used to assess the pricing of investment, longevity, and credit risks being transferred in pension buy‐in and buy‐out transactions.
    December 06, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12159   open full text
  • The Role of Agents and Brokers in the Market for Health Insurance.
    Pinar Karaca‐Mandic, Roger Feldman, Peter Graven.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 06, 2016
    Health insurance markets in the United States are characterized by imperfect information, complex products, and substantial search frictions. Insurance agents and brokers play a significant role in helping employers navigate these problems. However, little is known about the relations between the structure of the agent/broker market and access and affordability of insurance. This article aims to fill this gap by investigating the influence of agents/brokers on health insurance offering decisions of small firms, which are particularly vulnerable to problems of financing health insurance. Using a unique membership database from the National Association of Health Underwriters together with a nationally representative survey of employers, we find that small firms in more competitive agent/broker markets are more likely to offer health insurance and at lower premiums. Moreover, premiums are less dispersed in more competitive agent/broker markets.
    December 06, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12139   open full text
  • Lapse‐and‐Reentry in Variable Annuities.
    Thorsten Moenig, Nan Zhu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 06, 2016
    Section 1035 of the current U.S. tax code allows policyholders to exchange their variable annuity policy for a similar product while maintaining tax‐deferred status. When the variable annuity contains a long‐term guarantee, this “lapse‐and‐reentry” strategy allows the policyholder to potentially increase the value of the embedded guarantee. We show that for a return‐of‐premium death benefit guarantee this is frequently optimal, which has severe repercussions for pricing. We analyze various policy features that may help mitigate the incentive to lapse and compare them regarding the insurer's average expense payments and their posttax utility to the policyholder. We find that a ratchet‐type guarantee and a state‐dependent fee structure best mitigate the lapse‐and‐reentry problem, outperforming the typical surrender schedule. Further, when accounting for proper tax treatment, the policyholder prefers a variable annuity with either of these three policy features over a comparable stock investment.
    December 06, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12171   open full text
  • A Termination Rule for Pension Guarantee Funds.
    Chunli Cheng, Filip Uzelac.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 01, 2016
    A termination rule based on a critical funding ratio is proposed for a pension guarantee fund (PGF) that considers closing an underfunded pension plan. This ratio is determined by solving an expected utility maximization problem on behalf of plan beneficiaries subject to two constraints designed to preserve the PGF's viability. The first is an upper bound on the PGF's annual intervention probability; the second, a restriction on the expected shortfall of an underfunded pension plan that is not closed. Both too low and too high critical funding ratios hurt beneficiaries’ interests, depending on their degree of risk aversion.
    December 01, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12150   open full text
  • Advantageous Selection, Moral Hazard, And Insurer Sorting On Risk In The U.S. Automobile Insurance Market.
    Patricia A. Robinson, Frank A. Sloan, Lindsey M. Eldred.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 28, 2016
    This study quantifies the role of private information in automobile insurance policy choice using data on subjective beliefs, risk preference, reckless driving, the respondent's insurer, and insurance policy characteristics merged with insurer‐specific quality ratings distributed by independent organizations. We find a zero correlation between ex post accident risk and insurance coverage, reflecting advantageous selection in policy choice offset by moral hazard. Advantageous selection is partly attributable to insurer sorting on consumer attributes known and used by insurers. Our analysis of insurer sorting reveals that lower‐risk drivers on attributes observed by insurers obtain coverage from insurers with higher‐quality ratings.
    November 28, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12170   open full text
  • WILL THEY TAKE THE MONEY AND WORK? PEOPLE'S WILLINGNESS TO DELAY CLAIMING SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS FOR a LUMP SUM.
    Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, Tatjana Schimetschek.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 28, 2016
    This article investigates whether exchanging Social Security delayed retirement credits, currently paid as increases in lifelong benefits, for a lump sum would induce later claiming and additional work. We show that people would voluntarily claim about 6 months later if the lump sum were paid for claiming after the early retirement age, and about 8 months later if the lump sum were paid only for those claiming after their full retirement age. Overall, people will work one‐third to one‐half of the additional months. Those who would currently claim at the youngest ages are most responsive to the lump sum offer.
    November 28, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12173   open full text
  • Insured Loss Inflation: How Natural Catastrophes Affect Reconstruction Costs.
    David Döhrmann, Marc Gürtler, Martin Hibbeln.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 28, 2016
    In the aftermath of a natural catastrophe, there is increased demand for skilled reconstruction labor, which leads to significant increases in reconstruction labor wages and hence insured losses. Such inflation effects are known as “Demand Surge” effects. It is important for insurance companies to properly account for these effects when calculating insurance premiums and determining economic capital. We propose an approach to quantifying the Demand Surge effect and present an econometric model for the effect that is based on 192 catastrophe events in the United States. Our model explains more than 75 percent of the variance of the Demand Surge effect and is thus able to identify the key drivers of the phenomenon.
    November 28, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12134   open full text
  • Managing Capital Via Internal Capital Market Transactions: The Case Of Life Insurers.
    Greg Niehaus.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 28, 2016
    The movement of capital within insurance groups is important for understanding insolvency risk management, as well as regulatory policies regarding capital standards and group supervision. Panel data estimates indicate that, on average, a dollar decrease in performance (net income plus unrealized capital gains) when performance is negative is associated with a $0.26 increase in capital contributions to life insurers from other entities in the group, and that a dollar increase in performance when performance is positive is associated with a $0.56 increase in the amount of internal shareholder dividends paid by life insurers to other entities in the group. Moreover, the sensitivity of internal dividends to performance is higher during the financial crisis than the noncrisis period. Also, insurers with low (high) risk‐based capital ratios receive more (less) internal capital contributions than other insurers, holding other factors constant.
    November 28, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12143   open full text
  • Testing for Asymmetric Information in Insurance Markets: A Multivariate Ordered Regression Approach.
    Valentino Dardanoni, Antonio Forcina, Paolo Li Donni.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 10, 2016
    The positive correlation (PC) test is the standard procedure used in the empirical literature to detect the existence of asymmetric information in insurance markets. This article describes a new tool to implement an extension of the PC test based on a new family of regression models, the multivariate ordered logit, designed to study how the joint distribution of two or more ordered response variables depends on exogenous covariates. We present an application of our proposed extension of the PC test to the Medigap health insurance market in the United States. Results reveal that the risk–coverage association is not homogeneous across coverage and risk categories, and depends on individual socioeconomic and risk preference characteristics.
    November 10, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12145   open full text
  • Risk Misperceptions And Selection In Insurance Markets: An Application To Demand For Cancer Insurance.
    Mary Riddel, David Hales.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 28, 2016
    We test for the influence of optimism on selection in a hypothetical cancer‐insurance market using a survey of 474 subjects. We elicit perceptions of baseline cancer risk and control efficacy and combine these with subject‐specific cancer risks predicted by the Harvard Cancer Risk Index to develop measures of baseline and control optimism. Following Fang, Keane, and Silverman (), we hypothesize that a variable may lead to advantageous selection if it is positively correlated with both prevention effort and demand for insurance. We find evidence of selection from both baseline and control optimism, but little evidence of selection from cognitive ability and risk aversion. We then estimate a model that allows us to classify subjects according to their excess risk‐reducing effort and excess insurance uptake that occurs solely because of baseline and control optimism. We find subjects who overinsure relative to a subject with accurate risk beliefs are likely to have lower expected treatment costs, ceteris paribus. This indicates that on net, baseline and control optimism leads to advantageous selection in our sample.
    October 28, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12180   open full text
  • Enterprise Risk Management And Default Risk: Evidence From The Banking Industry.
    Sara A. Lundqvist, Anders Vilhelmsson.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 17, 2016
    Enterprise risk management (ERM) has emerged as a framework for more holistic and integrated risk management with an emphasis on enhanced governance of the risk management system. ERM should theoretically reduce the volatility of cash flows, agency risk, and information risk—ultimately reducing a firm's default risk. We empirically investigate the relationship between the degree of ERM implementation and default risk in a panel data set covering 78 of the world's largest banks. We create a novel measure of the degree of ERM implementation. We find that a higher degree of ERM implementation is negatively related to the credit default swap (CDS) spread of a bank. When a rich set of control variables and fixed effects are included, a one‐standard‐deviation increase in the degree of ERM implementation decreases CDS spreads by 21 basis points. The degree of ERM implementation is, however, not a significant determinant of credit ratings when controls for corporate governance are included.
    October 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12151   open full text
  • Ratings: It's Accrual World.
    James M. Carson, Evan M. Eastman, David L. Eckles.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 05, 2016
    Loss reserves are a discretionary tool for managing insurer earnings, with more accurate and/or less volatile reserve errors resulting in higher accruals quality. We investigate whether accruals quality is related to insurer financial strength ratings. Specifically, we use insurer loss reserve errors as a measure of the quality of accruals and examine whether overall accruals quality, as well as a decomposition into innate and discretionary accruals quality, is related to insurer financial strength ratings. We find that firms with lower‐quality (noisier) accruals receive lower financial strength ratings from A.M. Best. This result holds for both innate and discretionary accruals. Overall, we provide the first evidence that the quality of accounting information is a significant factor in ratings of insurance firms.
    October 05, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12179   open full text
  • Rating Changes And Competing Information: Evidence On Publicly Traded Insurance Firms.
    Leon Chen, Steven W. Pottier.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 03, 2016
    We examine the predictive ability of three competing sources of financial information—rating changes, profit changes, and excess stock returns. We find the following significant relations between current and lagged values of these three endogenous variables: (1) rating changes are positively related to past excess stock returns, (2) profit changes are positively related to past excess stock returns, and (3) profit changes and excess stock returns are mean reverting. In addition, profit changes are substantially more predictable than rating changes or excess stock returns, and past values of profit changes account for most of the observed ability to predict current profit changes. In contrast, past profit changes have little predictive ability in relation to excess stock returns or rating changes.
    October 03, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12181   open full text
  • Regulatory Capture And Efficacy In Workers’ Compensation.
    Steven P. Clark, David C. Marlett, Faith R. Neale.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 03, 2016
    We examine changes in workers’ compensation laws from 2003 to 2011 and their effect on insurer performance as measured by loss ratios and claim costs. We study changes to: length of temporary total loss indemnity, penalties on employees who do not comply with rehabilitation efforts, employer or employee choice of physician, and limits on attorney fees. We find differential effects among these reforms with the most robust being changes to limits on temporary total indemnity and penalties for workers who do not comply with rehabilitation efforts. We measure one effect of the political environment and find that appointing authority over the workers’ compensation board or committee significantly affects loss costs. Lastly, we find evidence of regulatory capture in workers’ compensation.
    October 03, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12183   open full text
  • Does Limiting Allowable Rating Variation In The Small Group Health Insurance Market Affect Employer Self‐Insurance?
    Erin Trish, Bradley Herring.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 03, 2016
    The Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposes adjusted community rating in the small group market, which employers can avoid by self‐insuring, raising concerns about adverse selection. We evaluate the impact of limiting allowable rating variation on employer self‐insurance across industries with varied health risk, using cross‐state variation in pre‐ACA rating regulations, the nationally representative 2008–2013 KFF/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey, and a triple‐difference regression approach. We find that lower risk employers subject to laws limiting allowable premium rating variation have a predicted probability of self‐insurance that is about 18 percentage points higher than otherwise‐similar higher risk employers, suggesting that these selection concerns are warranted.
    October 03, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12184   open full text
  • Hurricane Risk Management With Climate And Co2 Indices.
    Chia‐Chien Chang, Jen‐Wei Yang, Min‐Teh Yu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 03, 2016
    We propose a regime‐switching Poisson process incorporating climate and carbon dioxide (CO2) indices (RPCM) to model hurricane frequency. Model accuracy shows that two‐state RPCM (2‐RPCM) is superior to the existing climate methods, as forecast errors under 2‐RPCM are smaller than previous models by about 60–75 percent. We derive the pricing formula of reinsurance premiums by assuming the aggregate loss following the regime‐switching compound process. Pricing errors under 2‐RPCM for reinsurance premiums are 35–54 percent lower than those from previous models. The climate and regime‐switching effects dominate the CO2 effect in reducing pricing errors and producing more effective tail value at risk.
    October 03, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12182   open full text
  • Enterprise Risk Management and the Cost of Capital.
    Thomas R. Berry‐Stölzle, Jianren Xu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 26, 2016
    Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a process that manages all risks in an integrated, holistic fashion by controlling and coordinating any offsetting risks across the enterprise. This research investigates whether the adoption of the ERM approach affects firms' cost of equity capital. We restrict our analysis to the U.S. insurance industry to control for unobservable differences in business models and risk exposures across industries. We simultaneously model firms' adoption of ERM and the effect of ERM on the cost of capital. We find that ERM adoption significantly reduces firm's cost of capital. Our results suggest that cost of capital benefits are one answer to the question how ERM can create value.
    September 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12152   open full text
  • Semicoherent Multipopulation Mortality Modeling: The Impact on Longevity Risk Securitization.
    Johnny Siu‐Hang Li, Wai‐Sum Chan, Rui Zhou.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 04, 2016
    Multipopulation mortality models play an important role in longevity risk transfers involving more than one population. Most of the existing multi‐population mortality models are built on the hypothesis of coherence, which assumes that there always exists a force that brings the mortality differential between any two populations back to a constant long‐term equilibrium level. This hypothesis prevents diverging long‐term forecasts, which do not seem to be biologically reasonable. However, the coherence assumption may be perceived by market participants as too strong and is in fact not always supported by empirical observations. In this article, we introduce a new concept called “semicoherence,” which is less stringent in the sense that it permits the mortality trajectories of two related populations to diverge, as long as the divergence does not exceed a specific tolerance corridor, beyond which mean reversion will come into effect. We further propose to produce semicoherent mortality forecasts by using a vector threshold autoregression. The proposed modeling approach is illustrated with mortality data from U.S. and English and Welsh male populations, and is applied to several pricing and hedging scenarios.
    September 04, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12135   open full text
  • Measuring Portfolio Risk Under Partial Dependence Information.
    Carole Bernard, Michel Denuit, Steven Vanduffel.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 26, 2016
    The bounds for risk measures of a portfolio when its components have known marginal distributions but the dependence among the risks is unknown are often too wide to be useful in practice. Moreover, availability of additional dependence information, such as knowledge of some higher‐order moments, makes the problem significantly more difficult. We show that replacing knowledge of the marginal distributions with knowledge of the mean of the portfolio does not result in significant loss of information when estimating bounds on value‐at‐risk. These results are used to assess the margin by which total capital can be underestimated when using the Solvency II or RBC capital aggregation formulas.
    August 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12165   open full text
  • Directors’ And Officers’ Liability Insurance And Firm Value.
    Joon Ho Hwang, Byungmo Kim.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 24, 2016
    This study examines the effect of directors' and officers' liability (D&O) insurance on firm value. Previous studies are divided on the value implication of D&O insurance: some argue for various benefits of being covered by D&O insurance, whereas others focus on the managerial opportunism stemming from being insured. In order to address whether D&O insurance increases firm value, we utilize a sample of quoted Korean companies from a period in which the disclosure of D&O insurance information was mandatory and there was a significant cross‐sectional variation in the firms' coverage of D&O insurance. We find that controlling for the endogeneity of D&O insurance coverage, D&O insurance increases firm value compared to noninsured firms. We also find evidence that the increase in firm value is pronounced for firms with greater growth opportunities, which suggests that D&O insurance can help firms to better convert growth opportunities into higher firm value.
    August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12136   open full text
  • WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COMPENSATION FOR WHIPLASH CLAIMS Is MADE MORE GENEROUS?
    J. David Cassidy, Søren Leth‐Petersen, Gabriel Pons Rotger.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 24, 2016
    We examine the effect of a Danish reform in 2002 that increased compensation for permanent loss of earnings capacity and extended the period when whiplash claimants could get compensation for temporary loss of earnings. The first is subject to extensive state verification by the government while the second is not. Using weekly data about disability, drug purchases, and use of health services during 1996–2007, we find that the reform increased the proportion on temporary disability by about 18 percent without a matching increase in drug purchases or the use of health services. We find no effect of compensation for permanent loss of earnings capacity.
    August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12169   open full text
  • Individual Capability and Effort in Retirement Benefit Choice.
    Hazel Bateman, Christine Eckert, Fedor Iskhakov, Jordan Louviere, Stephen Satchell, Susan Thorp.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 24, 2016
    We investigate the role of individual capability and effort in the management of retirement ruin. In an experimental setting, we analyze how 854 defined contribution (DC) plan members reallocated wealth between a lifetime annuity and a phased withdrawal account when we increased the risk of exhausting the phased withdrawal account before the end of life. We find that more numerate individuals who put effort into understanding product features chose more longevity insurance at higher ruin risks. Financially literate members were more likely to show understanding of the product features, but general financial literacy did not directly improve ruin risk management. Initiatives aiming to help DC members understand income stream products at the time of the decision are warranted.
    August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12162   open full text
  • The Combined Effect of Enterprise Risk Management and Diversification on Property and Casualty Insurer Performance.
    Jing Ai, Vickie Bajtelsmit, Tianyang Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 16, 2016
    In a well‐designed enterprise risk management (ERM) program, the firm integrates risk management into the strategic planning process, addressing strategic, financial, operational, and hazard risks under a single overarching process. This is particularly important to large financial firms, such as property and casualty (P&C) insurers, which face a diverse set of risks. Using a sample of P&C insurers with S&P ERM quality ratings from 2006 to 2013, we find that the quality of a firm's ERM is a significant determinant of P&C insurer performance and that, for firms with high‐quality ERM programs, product line diversification has a significant positive effect on performance.
    August 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12166   open full text
  • Health Insurance Benefit Mandates and Firm Size Distribution.
    James Bailey, Douglas Webber.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 15, 2016
    By 2010, the average U.S. state had passed 37 health insurance benefit mandates (laws requiring health insurance plans to cover certain additional services). Previous work has shown that these mandates likely increase health insurance premiums, which in turn could make it more costly for firms to compensate employees. Using 1996–2010 data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and a novel instrumental variables strategy, we show that there is limited evidence that mandates reduce employment. However, we find that mandates lead to a distortion in firm size, benefiting larger firms that are able to self‐insure and thus exempt themselves from these state‐level health insurance regulations. This distortion in firm size away from small businesses may lead to substantial decreases in productivity and economic growth.
    August 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12164   open full text
  • Trust‐Preferred Securities And Insurer Financing Decisions.
    James I. Hilliard, Steven W. Pottier, Jianren Xu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 15, 2016
    We analyze insurance holding company (IHC) issuance of trust‐preferred securities (TPS) from 1994 to 2013. We find that larger and more financially levered IHCs issued TPS in 1996 and 1997, as well as those that obtained financial strength ratings from A.M. Best. Abnormal stock price returns are positively related to financial distress costs, growth opportunities, and tax burden, but negatively related to size. Consistent with the pecking order theory, intent to use TPS proceeds to retire debt is positively related to abnormal stock returns, whereas intent to use proceeds to retire preferred equity is negatively related to abnormal stock returns.
    August 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12137   open full text
  • Credit Crunch and Insurance Consumption: The Aftermath of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.
    Shinichi Kamiya.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 15, 2016
    Using cross‐state panel data of the U.S. personal auto insurance premiums from 2007 to 2012, this study provides evidence that consumer purchases of insurance were reduced by more than expected from losses of risk exposure during and after the subprime mortgage crisis. Analyses show that the credit crunch of auto loans and a deterioration of net worth in housing resulting from the bursting housing bubble contributed to the reduced consumption of auto insurance. This result is robust even after controlling for associated factors, such as the insurance price, personal spending on vehicles, and general consumption. These findings provide evidence for a real effect of the financial crisis.
    August 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12167   open full text
  • An Investigation of the Short‐Run and Long‐Run Stock Returns Surrounding Insurer Rating Changes.
    Leon Chen, Jennifer J. Gaver, Steven W. Pottier.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 15, 2016
    We find that stock returns move in the direction of insurer rating changes in the 12‐month period prior to the announcement. There is an additional stock price response following the announcement of a downgrade, but no response to upgrade announcements. The reaction to a downgrade is more pronounced when it involves a smaller insurer, when it spans multiple levels, or when it is a threshold downgrade. Returns are significantly more negative during the 12 months leading up to a downgrade announcement during the financial crisis (2008 and 2009) compared to other sample years.
    August 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12138   open full text
  • An INCENTIVE‐COMPATIBLE EXPERIMENT ON PROBABILISTIC INSURANCE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR AN INSURER'S SOLVENCY LEVEL.
    Anja Zimmer, Helmut Gründl, Christian D. Schade, Franca Glenzer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 25, 2016
    This article is the first to conduct an incentive‐compatible experiment using real monetary payoffs to test the hypothesis of probabilistic insurance, which states that willingness to pay for insurance decreases sharply in the presence of even small default probabilities as compared to a risk‐free insurance contract. In our experiment, 181 participants state their willingness to pay for insurance contracts with different levels of default risk. We find that the willingness to pay sharply decreases with increasing default risk. Our results, hence, strongly support the hypothesis of probabilistic insurance. Furthermore, we study the impact of customer reaction to default risk on an insurer's optimal solvency level using our experimentally obtained data on insurance demand. We show that an insurer should choose to be default‐free rather than having even a very small default probability. This risk strategy is also optimal when assuming substantial transaction costs for risk management activities undertaken to achieve the maximum solvency level.
    July 25, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12148   open full text
  • What if Variable Annuity Policyholders With Guaranteed Lifelong Withdrawal Benefit Were Rational?
    Gabriella Piscopo, Philipp Rüede.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 27, 2016
    This article examines the lapse risk inherent to the guaranteed lifelong withdrawal benefit option embedded in a variable annuity product valuated from a pure derivatives perspective, that is, as a Bermudian option given to the policyholder. We assume rational behavior and quantify the potential impact of the lapse risk, defined as the difference between no lapse and optimal lapsing. We develop a sensitivity analysis that shows how the value of the product varies with the key parameters, and calculate the fair fee using Monte Carlo simulations. Empirical analyses are performed and numerical results are provided.
    June 27, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12146   open full text
  • Life Insurance Demand Under Health Shock Risk.
    Christoph Hambel, Holger Kraft, Lorenz S. Schendel, Mogens Steffensen.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 13, 2016
    This article studies the consumption‐investment‐insurance problem of a family. The wage earner faces the risk of a health shock. The family can buy long‐term life insurance that can only be revised at significant costs. A revision is only possible as long as the insured person is healthy. The combination of unspanned labor income and the stickiness of insurance decisions reduces the long‐term insurance demand significantly. Since such a reduction is costly and families anticipate these potential costs, they buy less protection at all ages. In particular, young families stay away from long‐term life insurance markets altogether.
    June 13, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12149   open full text
  • Basel III Versus Solvency II: An Analysis of Regulatory Consistency Under the New Capital Standards.
    Daniela Laas, Caroline Franziska Siegel.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 09, 2016
    This article provides a critical analysis of the consistency of the standard approaches for market and credit risks under Solvency II and the current and forthcoming Basel III standards. The comparability is assessed both theoretically via a detailed comparison of the capital standards and in a numerical analysis that contrasts the capital charges for a stylized portfolio. Our examination reveals substantial discrepancies in the design of the frameworks. These lead to vastly differing capital requirements for the same risks. Moreover, the analysis indicates higher charges for banks than insurers, especially under the proposed new Basel III standard approaches.
    June 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12154   open full text
  • Dynamic Longevity Hedging in the Presence of Population Basis Risk: A Feasibility Analysis From Technical and Economic Perspectives.
    Kenneth Q. Zhou, Johnny Siu‐Hang Li.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 09, 2016
    In this article, we study the feasibility of dynamic longevity hedging with standardized securities that are linked to broad‐based mortality indexes. On the technical front, we generalize the dynamic “delta” hedging strategy developed by Cairns (2011) to incorporate the situation when population basis risk exists. On the economic front, we discuss the potential financial benefits of an index‐based hedge over a bespoke risk transfer. By considering data from a large group of national populations, we find evidence supporting the diversifiability of population basis risk. We further propose a customized surplus swap—executed between a hedger and reinsurer—to utilize the diversifiability. As standardized instruments demand less illiquidity premium, a combination of a dynamic index‐based hedge and the proposed customized surplus swap may possibly be a more economical (and equally effective) alternative to a bespoke risk transfer.
    June 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12158   open full text
  • Managing Longevity Risk by Implementing Sustainable Full Retirement Age Policies.
    Ralph Stevens.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 09, 2016
    In this article, we investigate the effect of five policies to link the retirement age to (forecasted) survival probabilities. We investigate the effect of these policies on the distribution of the (future) full retirement age and on longevity risk in the discounted future payments. Our investigated policies effectively hedge longevity risk, but do lead to substantial uncertainty in the retirement age and the expected number of years in retirement. We find that policies based on present values lead to a higher annuity factor than policies based on expected remaining years in retirement. Our results can explain the differences between the proposed automatic rule to adjust the full retirement age in the United Kingdom (defined contribution pension schemes) and the Netherlands (defined benefit pension schemes).
    June 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12153   open full text
  • Two Tests for Ex Ante Moral Hazard in a Market for Automobile Insurance.
    David Rowell, Son Nghiem, Luke B Connelly.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 09, 2016
    Empirically separating the phenomena of moral hazard and adverse selection in insurance markets has occupied researchers in this field for decades. Recently, the potential benefits of using survey data instead of claims data to control for the different dimensions of private information when testing for evidence of asymmetric information have been explored in the insurance literature. This article extends that approach to present two tests for ex ante moral hazard in a market for automobile insurance. In this article we specify (1) a recursive model and (2) an instrumental variables model to address endogeneity with respect to policy selection in cross‐sectional road traffic crash (RTC) survey data. We report a statistically significant ex ante moral hazard effect with both models. This result is then subjected to a falsification test, whereby the analysis is repeated in subsamples of at‐fault and not‐at‐fault RTCs. Our antitest produces no evidence of ex ante moral hazard in the sub‐sample of not‐at‐fault RTCs, in which the true moral hazard may reasonably be assumed to be zero, thus supporting the interpretation of the results of our two models. Our extension of the existing literature via these two specifications may have useful analogs in other insurance markets for which survey data are available.
    June 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12161   open full text
  • Decomposing Asymmetric Information in China's Automobile Insurance Market.
    Feng Gao, Michael R. Powers, Jun Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 09, 2016
    Distinguishing between adverse selection and moral hazard is a difficult but important issue in insurance economics. In the present work, we model and evaluate the distinct roles of adverse selection, ex ante moral hazard, and ex post moral hazard in China's automobile insurance market. Our econometric analysis supports the following conclusions: (1) the effect of asymmetric information on the probability of claims is significant; (2) the effect of ex ante moral hazard on the probability of claims is not significant, establishing adverse selection as the underlying source of information asymmetry; (3) the effect of asymmetric information (including ex ante moral hazard) on the severity of claims is not significant; and (4) the impact of ex post moral hazard on claim severity is significant for a subset of lower‐coverage policyholders. Consequently, it may be advisable for Chinese automobile insurance companies to allocate greater resources to both underwriting (i.e., selecting policyholders) and auditing claims.
    June 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12155   open full text
  • Crisis Sentiment in the U.S. Insurance Sector.
    Felix Irresberger, Fee Elisabeth König, Gregor N. F. Weiß.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 09, 2016
    We use Internet search volume data to measure idiosyncratic and market‐wide crisis sentiment to explain insurer stock return volatility. We find that market‐level crisis sentiment was a significant predictor of stock return volatility of U.S. insurers between 2006 and 2010. Higher levels of crisis sentiment are associated with higher levels of price uncertainty. This effect is strongest for insurers with less exposure to the adverse effects of the financial crisis. Further, crisis sentiment also affects the cross‐section of movements in insurer stock prices. Our results imply that investors exited insurer stocks mainly due to crisis sentiment rather than a rational assessment of the insurers’ actual exposure to the crisis.
    June 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12156   open full text
  • Optimal Enterprise Risk Management and Decision Making With Shared and Dependent Risks.
    Jing Ai, Patrick L. Brockett, Tianyang Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 25, 2016
    Dynamic enterprise risk management (ERM) entails holistic decision making for critical corporate functions such as capital budgeting and risk management. The interplay across business divisions, however, is complicated due to their natural interactions through risk exposures that are shared and dependent across an intricate corporate structure. This article develops an integrated optimization framework via a copula‐based decision tree interface to facilitate ERM decision making to meet the specified enterprise goal in a multiperiod setting. We illustrate our model and provide managerial insights with a case study for a financial services company engaged in both banking and insurance businesses.
    May 25, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jori.12140   open full text
  • The Increasing Convex Order and the Trade–off of Size for Risk.
    Liqun Liu, Jack Meyer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 11, 2015
    One random variable is larger than another in the increasing convex order if that random variable is preferred or indifferent to the other by all decision makers with increasing and convex utility functions. Decision makers in this set prefer larger random variables and are risk loving. When a decision maker whose utility function is increasing and concave is indifferent between such a pair of random variables, a trade‐off of size for risk is revealed, and this information can be used to make comparative static predictions concerning the choices of other decision makers. Specifically, the choices of all those who are strongly more (or less) risk averse than the reference decision maker can be predicted. Thus, the increasing convex order, together with Ross's (1981) definition of strongly more risk averse, can provide additional comparative static findings in a variety of decision problems. The analysis here discusses the decisions to self‐protect and to purchase insurance.
    December 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12132   open full text
  • The Role Of Pregnancy In Micro Health Insurance: Evidence Of Adverse Selection From Pakistan.
    Yi Yao, Joan T. Schmit, Justin R. Sydnor.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 11, 2015
    With increasing interest from commercial players in developing insurance markets to meet the needs of low‐income people, efforts to find sustainable products have expanded rapidly yet remain elusive. This is particularly true in the domain of health insurance, where the general challenges of offering voluntary private health insurance are often exacerbated by poor underlying health services and a lack of public health programs. In an effort to identify new opportunities to expand health insurance protection to underserved markets, we analyze a rich data set from a micro health insurance program in Pakistan. Observing that pregnancy‐related care accounts for 40 percent of all claims and 36 percent of the total claims amount, we focus much of our attention on understanding the role of pregnancy in micro health insurance. We find evidence of extensive adverse selection related to pregnancy claims, both with regard to original coverage purchase and with regard to renewal. In many countries, pregnancy health care is provided by or paid for by the government. We encourage consideration of this possibility, leaving the remaining health care needs for market‐based health insurance.
    December 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12131   open full text
  • Value‐at‐Risk Bounds With Variance Constraints.
    Carole Bernard, Ludger Rüschendorf, Steven Vanduffel.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 11, 2015
    We study bounds on the Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) of a portfolio when besides the marginal distributions of the components its variance is also known, a situation that is of considerable interest in risk management. We discuss when the bounds are sharp (attainable) and also point out a new connection between the study of VaR bounds and the convex ordering of aggregate risk. This connection leads to the construction of an algorithm, called Extended Rearrangement Algorithm (ERA), that makes it possible to approximate sharp VaR bounds. We test the stability and the quality of the algorithm in several numerical examples. We apply the results to the case of credit risk portfolio models and verify that adding the variance constraint gives rise to significantly tighter bounds in all situations of interest.
    December 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12108   open full text
  • Is THERE AN OPTIMAL PENSION FUND SIZE? A SCALE‐ECONOMY ANALYSIS OF ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS.
    Jacob A. Bikker.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 11, 2015
    This article investigates scale economies and the optimal scale of pension funds, estimating different cost functions with varying assumptions about the shape of the underlying average cost function: U‐shaped versus monotonically declining. Using unique data for Dutch pension funds over 1992–2009, we find that unused scale economies for both administrative activities are indeed large and concave, that is, huge for small pension funds and decreasing with pension fund size. We observe a clear optimal scale of around 40,000 participants during 1992–2000 (pointing to a U‐shaped average cost function), which increases in subsequent years to size above the largest pension fund, pointing to monotonically decreasing average costs. These model‐based outcomes are roughly in line with the results of a survivorship analysis.
    December 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12103   open full text
  • Between‐Group Adverse Selection: Evidence From Group Critical Illness Insurance.
    Martin Eling, Ruo Jia, Yi Yao.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 11, 2015
    This article demonstrates the presence of adverse selection in the group insurance market. Conventional wisdom suggests that group insurance mitigates adverse selection because it minimizes individual choice. We complement this conventional wisdom by analyzing a group insurance scenario in which individual choice is excluded, and we find that group insurance alone is not effective enough to eliminate adverse selection; that is, between‐group adverse selection exists. Between‐group adverse selection, however, disappears over time if the group renews with the same insurer for a certain period. Our results thus indicate that experience rating and underwriting based on information that insurers learn over time are important in addressing adverse selection.
    December 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12097   open full text
  • Managing Mortality Risk With Longevity Bonds When Mortality Rates Are Cointegrated.
    Tat Wing Wong, Mei Choi Chiu, Hoi Ying Wong.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 23, 2015
    This article investigates the dynamic mean‐variance hedging problem of an insurer using longevity bonds (or longevity swaps). Insurance liabilities are modeled using a doubly stochastic compound Poisson process in which the mortality rate is correlated and cointegrated with the index mortality rate. We solve this dynamic hedging problem using a theory of forward–backward stochastic differential equations. Our theory shows that cointegration materially affects the optimal hedging strategy beyond correlation. The cointegration effect is independent of the risk preference of the insurer. Explicit solutions for the optimal hedging strategy are derived for cointegrated stochastic mortality models with both constant and state‐dependent volatilities.
    October 23, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12110   open full text
  • Examining Flood Insurance Claims in the United States: Six Key Findings.
    Carolyn Kousky, Erwann Michel‐Kerjan.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 23, 2015
    We undertake the first large‐scale analysis of flood insurance claims in the United States, analyzing over 1 million claims from the federally managed National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) over the period 1978–2012. Using fixed effects regressions and other statistical analyses, we test several hypotheses about the nature and drivers of flood claims (e.g., the impact of flood zone, characteristics of the house, individual and collective mitigation, and repetitive loss properties), as well as uncover quantitative relationships on the determinants of claims payments. We also examine how claims are distributed across time and space. Our findings, several surprising, provide a quantitative basis for exploring the challenges associated with low insurance demand and also can contribute to more informed policy decisions regarding reform of the NFIP, as well as flood insurance markets around the world.
    October 23, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12106   open full text
  • Optimal Prevention for Multiple Risks.
    Christophe Courbage, Henri Loubergé, Richard Peter.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 23, 2015
    This article analyzes optimal prevention in a situation of multiple, possibly correlated risks. We focus on probability reduction (self‐protection) so that correlation becomes endogenous. If prevention concerns only one risk, introducing a second exogenous risk increases the level of prevention expenditures, even if correlation is negative. If prevention expenditures may be invested for both risks, a substitution effect arises. Under nonincreasing returns on self‐protection, we find that increased dependence increases aggregate prevention expenditures, but not necessarily prevention expenditures for each risk due to differences in prevention efficiency. Similar results are found when considering changes in the severity of losses. Consequently, the comparative statics emphasize global effects versus allocation effects. Our results have strong policy implications, considering the numerous mandatory safety measures introduced by governments over the past years.
    October 23, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12105   open full text
  • Single‐ and Cross‐Generation Natural Hedging of Longevity and Financial Risk.
    Elisa Luciano, Luca Regis, Elena Vigna.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 22, 2015
    This article provides natural hedging strategies for life insurance and annuity businesses written on a single generation or on different generations in the presence of both longevity and interest‐rate risks. We obtain closed‐form solutions for delta and gamma hedges against cohort‐based longevity risk. We exploit the correlation between the mortality intensities of different generations and hedge the longevity risk of one cohort with products on other cohorts. An application with UK data on survivorship and bond dynamics shows that hedging is effective, even when rebalancing is infrequent.
    October 22, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12104   open full text
  • A Multivariate Analysis of Intercompany Loss Triangles.
    Peng Shi.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. October 22, 2015
    The prediction of insurance liabilities often requires aggregating experience of loss payment from multiple insurers. The resulting data set of intercompany loss triangles displays a multilevel structure of claim development where a portfolio consists of a group of insurers, each insurer several lines of business, and each line various cohorts of claims. In this article, we propose a Bayesian hierarchical model to analyze intercompany claim triangles. A copula regression is employed to join multiple triangles of each insurer, and a hierarchical structure is specified on major parameters to allow for information pooling across insurers. Numerical analysis is performed for an insurance portfolio of multivariate loss triangles from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. We show that prediction is improved through borrowing strength within and between insurers based on training and holdout observations.
    October 22, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12102   open full text
  • Risk Management of Policyholder Behavior in Equity‐Linked Life Insurance.
    Anne MacKay, Maciej Augustyniak, Carole Bernard, Mary R. Hardy.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 24, 2015
    The financial guarantees embedded in variable annuity contracts expose insurers to a wide range of risks, lapse risk being one of them. When policyholders’ lapse behavior differs from the assumptions used to hedge variable annuity contracts, the effectiveness of dynamic hedging strategies can be significantly impaired. By studying how the fee structure and surrender charges affect surrender incentives, we obtain new theoretical results on the optimal surrender region and use them to design a marketable contract that is never optimal to lapse.
    September 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12094   open full text
  • Patent Litigation Insurance.
    Anne Duchêne.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 24, 2015
    Empirical studies have found that high litigation costs often discourage small firms from investing in R&D, as they fear their patent will be infringed and they will not be able to afford litigation. As a solution, firms have been encouraged to purchase insurance policies that, by covering legal costs in the event of a trial, serve as a commitment to litigate so that settlement terms are more favorable to the insured, and potential infringement is less likely to occur. However, very few firms are purchasing insurance and the market remains poorly developed throughout the world. I show that firms might be discouraged from buying insurance because of information asymmetries, not only with insurance companies but also with their competitors. I study the situation of a patent holder, who perfectly knows the validity and enforceability (“strength”) of her patent, which has been infringed by a competitor with less information on the patent. The patent holder can purchase insurance to have a credible threat to litigate and increase the infringer's settlement offer. But the decision to buy insurance conveys information about the patent strength to the infringer. As a result the patent holder may prefer not to be insured rather than transmitting this information. This signaling effect can yield different equilibriums, in particular, a pooling equilibrium “no insurance” where no patent holder purchases insurance. I study if this situation might be improved by imposing mandatory insurance or by giving the insurer a share of litigation proceeds.
    September 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12093   open full text
  • An Investigation Of Market Concentration And Financial Stability In Property–Liability Insurance Industry.
    Jeungbo Shim.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 20, 2015
    The article investigates whether the market concentration is associated with an insurer's financial stability in the U.S. property–liability insurance industry over the period 1992–2010. We employ two‐stage least squares techniques with instrumental variables to address likely endogeneity problems. The results show that higher market concentration is associated with lower financial stability of insurance firms, consistent with the “concentration‐fragility” view. Our results indicate that firm‐specific characteristics including firm size, underwriting leverage, organizational form, product and geographical diversification, along with the exposure to natural catastrophes and macroeconomic conditions are important determinants in ensuring a safe and sound insurance system. Robustness tests using various estimation methods and alternative measures of financial stability present consistent results.
    August 20, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12091   open full text
  • Organization Structure And Corporate Demand For Reinsurance: The Case Of The Japanese Keiretsu.
    Noriyoshi Yanase, Piman Limpaphayom.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 16, 2015
    This study investigates the impact of organization structure on corporate demand for reinsurance. Previous research has shown that the unique corporate groupings in Japan known as the “keiretsu” have relatively low bankruptcy costs, low agency conflicts, low information asymmetry, and low effective taxes. These conditions should mitigate the benefits of reinsurance purchase. This conjecture is tested by examining demand for reinsurance of Japanese non‐life insurance companies during 1974–2010. Consistent with the prediction, keiretsu non‐life insurers have lower reinsurance purchase than independent non‐life insurance companies. The effects of the keiretsu structure also receded when keiretsu groupings' power was weakened after the asset bubble burst and the breakdown of the convoy system in mid 1990s. Consistent with previous studies, Japanese mutual insurers also purchase more reinsurance than stock insurers.
    July 16, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12092   open full text
  • Managing Financially Distressed Pension Plans In The Interest Of Beneficiaries.
    Joachim Inkmann, David Blake, Zhen Shi.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 16, 2015
    The beneficiaries of a corporate defined benefit pension plan in financial distress care about the security of their promised pensions. We propose to value the pension obligations of a corporate defined benefit plan using a discount rate that reflects the funding ability of the pension plan and its sponsoring company, and therefore depends, in part, on the chosen asset allocation. An optimal valuation is determined by a strategic asset allocation that is optimal given the risk premium a representative pension plan member demands for being exposed to funding risk. We provide an empirical application using the General Motors pension plan.
    July 16, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12090   open full text
  • How Does Tort Law Affect Consumer Auto Insurance Costs?
    Paul Heaton.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 16, 2015
    Although proponents of tort reform argue that it will benefit consumers through lowered insurance premiums and increased insurance availability, to date there is limited empirical evidence linking tort law to consumer outlays. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and a differences‐in‐differences research design, this article examines whether any of several common state‐level modifications to tort law affect consumer costs for auto insurance. Expenditures on auto insurance fall by 12 percent following no‐fault repeal and 6 percent following relaxation of collateral source restrictions, but are not measurably affected by bad faith reform, modifications to joint and several liability, or noneconomic damage caps. None of the modifications to tort law generate measurable increases in auto insurance take‐up. There is little variation in the impact of the reforms across income, education, and age groups, but no‐fault repeal and collateral source reform do disproportionately benefit consumers with lower cost policies.
    July 16, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12095   open full text
  • The Influence of Affect on Heuristic Thinking in Insurance Demand.
    Johannes G. Jaspersen, Vijay Aseervatham.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 01, 2015
    Heuristic thinking can influence human behavior in decisions under risk and uncertainty. In an experimental setting, we study whether emotional activation primes individuals to use the representativeness heuristic and the affect heuristic. We observe the decision behavior of 272 subjects in a computer‐based experiment that differentiates between incidental affect and integral affect. Positive incidental affect and integral affect increase the use of the representativeness heuristic, while negative incidental affect has no effect. Our findings have statistical and economic significance and carry implications for insurance companies and regulators.
    June 01, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12088   open full text
  • Pricing and Hedging Variable Annuities in a Lévy Market: A Risk Management Perspective.
    Abdou Kélani, François Quittard‐Pinon.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 01, 2015
    Pricing and hedging life insurance contracts with minimum guarantees are major areas of concern for insurers and researchers. In this article, we propose a unified framework for pricing, hedging, and assessing the risk embedded in the guarantees offered by Variable Annuities in a Lévy market. We address these questions from a risk management perspective. This method proves to be fast, accurate, and efficient. For hedging, we use a local risk minimization to provide a concise formula for the optimal hedging ratio. We also consider hedging strategies that use a portfolio of standard options. For assessing risk, we introduce an accumulated discounted loss function that takes mortality, transaction costs, and fees into account. We apply our resulting unified framework to the Minimum Guarantees for Maturity Benefit, Death Benefit, and Accumulation Benefit contracts. We illustrate the whole method with CGMY and Kou processes, which prove to offer a realistic modeling for financial prices. From this application, we draw important practical implications. In particular, we show that the assumption of geometric Brownian motion leads to undervalue the actual economic capital necessary to hedge and gives an illusion of safety.
    June 01, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12087   open full text
  • Natural Hedging Strategies for Life Insurers: Impact of Product Design and Risk Measure.
    Andy Wong, Michael Sherris, Ralph Stevens.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 01, 2015
    Natural hedging allows life insurers to manage long‐term longevity and investment risks of life annuity products through offsetting risks in life insurance products. Benefits include a reduction in risk‐based capital. We use stochastic mortality and interest rate models to assess life insurance and annuity capital requirements and to quantify the benefits of natural hedging for a range of different types of life insurance product designs and risk measures based on probability of insurer solvency. We show that level‐premium life insurance products with a medium duration (around 20–30 years) can better hedge annuity products than whole life products. Renewable term life insurance products have less hedge effectiveness than level‐premium term insurance. Results vary with the risk measure used, with the 1‐year horizon Solvency II risk measure showing lower natural hedging benefits of life insurance compared to multiple‐period risk measures.
    June 01, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12079   open full text
  • Portfolio Optimization Under Solvency II: Implicit Constraints Imposed by the Market Risk Standard Formula.
    Alexander Braun, Hato Schmeiser, Florian Schreiber.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 01, 2015
    We optimize a life insurance company's asset allocation in the context of classical portfolio theory when the firm needs to adhere to the market risk capital requirements of Solvency II. The discussion starts with a brief review of the standard formula and the introduction of a parsimonious partial internal model. Subsequently, we estimate empirical risk–return profiles for the main asset classes held by European insurers and run a quadratic optimization program to derive nondominated frontiers with budget, short‐sale, and investment constraints. We then compute the capital charges under both solvency models and identify those efficient portfolio compositions that are permitted for an exogenously given amount of equity. Finally, we consider a systematically selected set of inefficient portfolios and check their admissibility, too. Our results show that the standard formula suffers from severe shortcomings that interfere with economically sensible asset management decisions. Therefore, the introduction of Solvency II in its current form is likely to have an adverse impact on certain parts of the European insurance sector.
    June 01, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12077   open full text
  • Self‐Insurance With Genetic Testing Tools.
    David Crainich.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 25, 2015
    The development of genetic testing creates opportunities to better target disease prevention actions. In this article, we determine how the genetic information modifies self‐insurance efforts in different health insurance market equilibria with adverse selection. We show that a regulation prohibiting insurers from using genetic information for rate‐making purposes: (1) cancels the benefits of genetic testing when pooling equilibria occur and (2) does not prevent the exploitation of the benefits derived from genetic testing when separating equilibria (both of the Rothschild‐Stiglitz or of the Miyazaki‐Spence type) prevail in insurance markets.
    May 25, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12085   open full text
  • Organizational Form, Ownership Structure, and CEO Turnover: Evidence From the Property–Casualty Insurance Industry.
    Jiang Cheng, J. David Cummins, Tzuting Lin.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 21, 2015
    We investigate the role of organizational form and ownership structure in corporate governance by examining CEO turnover for U.S. property–casualty insurers. Our article extends the prior literature by decomposing stock insurers into publicly traded and nonpublicly traded (closely held) entities and breaking down both types of stocks into family‐owned and nonfamily‐owned categories. We further subdivide family firms into those with family‐member CEOs and those with nonfamily CEOs. We find that the probability of nonroutine turnover has a significant negative relationship with firm performance. Turnover probabilities vary significantly by organizational form and ownership structure. Family firms with family‐member CEOs have the lowest turnover rate of any ownership type. The probability of nonroutine CEO turnover is lower for mutuals than for publicly traded nonfamily stock firms and also for all other types of stocks except closely held family stock firms and publicly traded family stocks with family‐member CEOs. The results provide further evidence that organizational form matters in terms of controlling agency costs in financial services firms.
    May 21, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12083   open full text
  • Measuring the Performance of the Secondary Market for Life Insurance Policies.
    Carmelo Giaccotto, Joseph Golec, Bryan P. Schmutz.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 21, 2015
    We construct an index of life insurance policies purchased in the secondary market by viatical and life settlement companies. Using the repeat sales method to measure returns over our 1993–2009 sample period, we find that policy returns average about 8 percent annually compared to 5.5 percent for the S&P 500 and 7 percent for corporate bonds, but they are twice as volatile as the S&P and four times as volatile as bonds. Nevertheless, because the index return is relatively uncorrelated with stock or bond returns, life insurance policies make attractive additions to well‐diversified portfolios.
    May 21, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12078   open full text
  • A Burning Question: Does Arson Increase When Local House Prices Decline?
    Michael D. Eriksen, James M. Carson.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 21, 2015
    We construct panel data on house prices and the determined cause of 4.8 million individual fires in the United States between 1986 and 2010 to test whether decreases in local housing market prices coincided with increases in arson. Since some insured homeowners may attempt to disguise the actual cause of fire as accidental, we also examine how decreases in local house prices are associated with changes in the total number of fires and the probability of determined causes of accidental fires. For the sample period, our results suggest that declines in local house prices coincided with increases in arson, the total number of fires, and the probability that fires were determined to occur due to arson and misuse. We provide further support for the existence of such an effect with empirical evidence that the relation between declines in house prices and arson is stronger in states that allow mortgage lender recourse.
    May 21, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12089   open full text
  • Interactions Between Risk Taking, Capital, and Reinsurance for Property–Liability Insurance Firms.
    Selim Mankaï, Aymen Belgacem.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 19, 2015
    Financial theory has long recognized the structural relationship between capital and risk. This article posits reinsurance usage as a new endogenous decision variable and analyzes its effect on this decision mix from a sample of U.S. property–liability insurance firms. Empirical results obtained from a simultaneous equation model confirm the mutual interactions among capital, reinsurance and risk taking. Risk taking is positively related to capital, which highlights the effectiveness of regulatory mechanisms and the relevance of the capital buffer hypothesis. Reinsurance is negatively associated with capital, for which it displays a substitutive effect. These results seem to vary with the insurers’ level of capitalization, affiliation with a group, size, and organizational form. Unlike other decision variables, the capital ratio is adjusted to its target level.
    May 19, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12080   open full text
  • Asymmetric Information in the Home Insurance Market.
    Karl Ove Aarbu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 19, 2015
    We test for the presence of asymmetric information in the home insurance market on a data set containing about half a million home insurance contracts, applying several different specifications of the conditional correlation test. Unlike earlier studies, we control for private information about risk aversion by having access to detailed administrative register information at the policyholder level. We find robust evidence of asymmetric information. Asymmetric information may stem from adverse selection or moral hazard. To disentangle moral hazard and adverse selection, we utilize an exogenous law reform that had an effect on the insurance price. Our test shows no indication of moral hazard.
    May 19, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12084   open full text
  • The Valuation of Lifetime Health Insurance Policies with Limited Coverage.
    Shang‐Yin Yang, Chou‐Wen Wang, Hong‐Chih Huang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 02, 2015
    In adopting a traditional actuarial view, insurance companies often use expected values to determine the premiums for lifetime health insurance policies with limited coverage, which can lead to serious overpricing problems when the coverage limit is not very low or very high. To address this overpricing problem, this article provides analytical solutions for fair premiums of lifetime health insurance policies with limited coverage. Using internal data provided by insurance companies, this article describes the relationship between the level of limited coverage and excess premiums. The premium difference between a practical pricing method and a proposed pricing model creates a humped curve; the maximum excess premium ratio reaches nearly 20 percent for limited coverage for younger insured people.
    April 02, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12070   open full text
  • Cross‐Industry Product Diversification and Contagion in Risk and Return: The case of Bank‐Insurance and Insurance‐Bank Takeovers.
    Elyas Elyasiani, Sotiris K. Staikouras, Panagiotis Dontis‐Charitos.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 25, 2015
    We investigate the impact of domestic/international bancassurance deals on the risk‐return profiles of announcing and nonannouncing banks and insurers within a GARCH model. Bank‐insurance deals produce intra‐ and interindustry contagion in both risk and return, with larger deals producing greater contagion. Bidder banks and peers experience positive abnormal returns, with the effects on insurer peers being stronger than those on bank peers. Insurance‐bank deals produce insignificant excess returns for bidder and peer insurers and positive valuations for peer banks. Following the deal, the bank bidders' idiosyncratic (systematic) risk falls (increases), while insurance bidders exhibit a lower systematic risk and maintain their idiosyncratic risk.
    March 25, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12066   open full text
  • Managing Weather Risks: The Case of J. League Soccer Teams in Japan.
    Haruyoshi Ito, Jing Ai, Akihiko Ozawa.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 22, 2015
    Weather‐related risks present significant concerns for businesses worldwide. This article studies the impact weather conditions have on the financial performance of sports teams and proposes a hedging mechanism to manage the exposure. We analyze a unique game attendance data set supplied by the Japanese premier soccer association, J. League. Our analysis shows that precipitation has a significantly adverse impact on game attendance and team profits. We then design a hedging mechanism for this risk exposure and examine its contribution to the corporate value of the teams. In particular, we use the Wang transform model to incorporate the decision makers' risk preferences in the evaluation of the weather derivatives, where the risk aversion parameters are obtained from a survey of J. League managers. We find that the proposed weather derivatives contribute significantly to team value. Our analysis and results provide insights for weather risk management for sports teams in the international markets.
    March 22, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12071   open full text
  • Parameter Uncertainty and Residual Estimation Risk.
    Valeria Bignozzi, Andreas Tsanakas.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 16, 2015
    The notion of residual estimation risk is introduced to quantify the impact of parameter uncertainty on capital adequacy, for a given risk measure and capital estimation procedure. Residual risk equals the risk measure applied to the difference between a random loss and the corresponding capital estimator. Modified estimation procedures are proposed, based on parametric bootstrapping and predictive distributions, which compensate the impact of parameter uncertainty and lead to higher capital requirements. In the particular case of location‐scale families, the analysis simplifies and a capital estimator can always be found that leads to a residual risk of exactly zero.
    March 16, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12075   open full text
  • On the Propensity to Surrender a Variable Annuity Contract: An Empirical Analysis of Dynamic Policyholder Behavior.
    Christian Knoller, Gunther Kraut, Pascal Schoenmaekers.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 09, 2015
    We empirically analyze surrender behavior for variable annuity contracts using Japanese individual policy data. For traditional life insurance products, surrender behavior is typically explained by the interest rate and the emergency fund hypotheses. For variable annuities, the interest rate hypothesis is not directly applicable. For these products, we expect the value of the financial options and guarantees provided to the policyholder to drive surrender behavior. We define this expectation as the “moneyness hypothesis.” The statistical analysis confirms our moneyness hypothesis: the value of the embedded financial options and guarantees has the largest explanatory power for the surrender rate. The extent to which this finding holds depends on the single premium paid, which we consider a proxy for the policyholder's financial literacy. Moreover, our data set weakly supports the emergency fund hypothesis for the case of variable annuities.
    March 09, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12076   open full text
  • An Extreme Value Approach for Modeling Operational Risk Losses Depending on Covariates.
    Valérie Chavez‐Demoulin, Paul Embrechts, Marius Hofert.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 27, 2015
    A general methodology for modeling loss data depending on covariates is developed. The parameters of the frequency and severity distributions of the losses may depend on covariates. The loss frequency over time is modeled with a nonhomogeneous Poisson process with rate function depending on the covariates. This corresponds to a generalized additive model, which can be estimated with spline smoothing via penalized maximum likelihood estimation. The loss severity over time is modeled with a nonstationary generalized Pareto distribution (alternatively, a generalized extreme value distribution) depending on the covariates. Since spline smoothing cannot directly be applied in this case, an efficient algorithm based on orthogonal parameters is suggested. The methodology is applied both to simulated loss data and a database of operational risk losses collected from public media. Estimates, including confidence intervals, for risk measures such as Value‐at‐Risk as required by the Basel II/III framework are computed. Furthermore, an implementation of the statistical methodology in R is provided.
    February 27, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12059   open full text
  • Information and Insurer Financial Strength Ratings: Do Short Sellers Anticipate Ratings Changes?
    Chip Wade, Andre Liebenberg, Benjamin M. Blau.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    Ratings of financial institutions have been shown to provide informational value as stock prices generally decrease in response to ratings downgrades. Moreover, insurer's stock prices have been observed to decrease 2 days prior to downgrades, suggesting that informed trading occurs during the predowngrade period. This study examines the trading activity of short sellers surrounding insurer financial strength ratings. We show that short selling is abnormally high during the predowngrade period—indicating that short sellers can predict rating downgrades. Interestingly, we find that predowngrade short selling is driven by stocks of insurers with the most transparent balance sheets. This result suggests that while short sellers can predict rating downgrades generally, the opaqueness of an insurer's assets and liabilities can inhibit informed trading during the predowngrade period.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12063   open full text
  • Portfolio Choice in Retirement—What is The Optimal Home Equity Release Product?
    Katja Hanewald, Thomas Post, Michael Sherris.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    We study the decision problem of the optimal choice between home equity release products from a retired homeowner's perspective in the presence of longevity, long‐term care, house price, and interest rate risk. The individual can choose to release home equity using reverse mortgages or home reversion plans, to buy annuities, and long‐term care insurance. The individual enjoys utility gains from having access to either one of the two equity release products. Higher utility gains are found for the reverse mortgage, as its product features allow for higher lump‐sum payouts and provide downside protection for house prices.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12068   open full text
  • Yes, No, Perhaps? Premium Risk and Guaranteed Renewable Insurance Contracts With Heterogeneous Incomplete Private Information.
    Richard Peter, Andreas Richter, Petra Steinorth.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    The article shows that heterogeneous incomplete private information can explain the limited existence of guaranteed renewable health insurance (GR) contracts in an otherwise frictionless markets. We derive a unique equilibrium that can be of the form that either only a portion of the population or none will cover themselves against premium risk with a GR contract. Increased risk aversion, increased premium risk, and first‐order stochastic improvements of the distribution of private information increase the likelihood of positive take‐up. In case GR contracts are in demand, increased risk aversion and first‐order stochastic improvements of the distribution of private information lead to more individuals purchasing the GR contract.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12064   open full text
  • Self‐Insurance, Self‐Protection, and Saving: On Consumption Smoothing and Risk Management.
    Annette Hofmann, Richard Peter.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    This article studies the effect of risk preferences on self‐insurance and self‐protection in a two‐period expected utility framework. Here the investment to reduce risk precedes its effect. In contrast to single‐period models, self‐insurance and self‐protection react similarly when the agent's utility function becomes more concave. Effort is increased if and only if current consumption is sufficiently large. However, if we introduce endogenous saving, an agent with more concave utility always selects more self‐insurance, but will select more self‐protection if and only if the probability of loss is small enough. These latter results concur with those in standard monoperiodic models with no saving.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12060   open full text
  • Net Contribution, Liquidity, and Optimal Pension Management.
    Changhui Choi, Bong‐Gyu Jang, Changki Kim, Sang‐youn Roh.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    This article presents an optimal portfolio balancing strategy for a pension fund manager in the presence of fixed and proportional transaction costs with respect to stock trades and changes in net contribution. An analytic solution to the one‐period problem is presented and a heuristic method for a multiperiod problem is developed. For reasonably calibrated parameters, we find that our numerical results explain the actual asset allocation schemes of some internationally renowned pension funds. Moreover, we show that net contribution and liquidity have significant impacts on the optimal asset allocation of a pension fund.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12072   open full text
  • Market Expectations Following Catastrophes: An Examination of Insurance Broker Returns.
    Marc A. Ragin, Martin Halek.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    We investigate the effect major catastrophes are expected to have on equilibrium price and quantity in the insurance market. In particular, we examine whether investors expect total industry revenue to increase following a disaster's shock to insurers’ financial capital. Rather than examine insurers directly, we study insurance brokers, who earn commissions on premium revenue but do not pay losses following a disaster. We conduct an event study on insurance broker stock returns surrounding the 43 largest insured‐loss catastrophes since 1970. We find that brokers earn positive abnormal returns on the day of the event, and that these returns are sustained following the top 20 largest events. We then investigate factors influencing these returns and find that returns are positively related to the size of the loss and negatively related to existing insurer capital. From this, we conclude that catastrophe shocks are expected to increase net industry revenue, benefiting brokers most immediately. This investor response is consistent with economic theories of a negative relationship between capital and insurance prices and price‐inelastic demand for commercial insurance.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12069   open full text
  • Pricing in the Primary Market for Cat Bonds: New Empirical Evidence.
    Alexander Braun.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    We present empirical evidence from the primary market for cat bonds, which provides new insights concerning the prevailing pricing practice of these instruments. For this purpose, transactional information from a multitude of sources has been collected and cross‐checked in order to compile a data set comprising virtually all cat bond tranches that were launched between June 1997 and December 2012. In order to identify the main determinants of the cat bond spread at issuance, a series of OLS regressions with heteroskedasticity‐ and autocorrelation‐consistent standard errors is run. Our results confirm the expected loss as the most important factor. Apart from that, covered territory, sponsor, reinsurance cycle, and the spreads on comparably rated corporate bonds exhibit a major impact. Based on these findings, we then propose an econometric cat bond pricing model that is applicable for all territories, perils, and trigger types. It exhibits a robust fit across different calibration subsamples and achieves a higher in‐sample and out‐of‐sample accuracy than several competing specifications that have been introduced in earlier work.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12067   open full text
  • Assessing the Risks of Insuring Reputation Risk.
    Nadine Gatzert, Joan T. Schmit, Andreas Kolb.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    Reputation risk is becoming increasingly important, especially with the rapidly growing influence of social media, heightened scrutiny on reputation risk by banking and insurance regulators, and reputation's impact on organizational value. Insurers have responded to this development only recently by offering new reputation risk insurance solutions. The aim of this article is to present the first detailed academic analysis of these new insurance policies, including examination of the risks insurers face in offering such coverage. We also offer a conceptualization of reputation risk in an insurance and risk management context with focus on exposures, perils, and hazards. Our analysis indicates that loss identification and measurement generate the greatest challenges to insurers in providing reputation risk coverage. Lack of experience as well as the complexity of the chain of reputation risk events related to reputation insurance coverage present insurers with significant challenges in making this a viable line of business.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12065   open full text
  • Estimation of Truncated Data Samples in Operational Risk Modeling.
    Bakhodir Ergashev, Konstantin Pavlikov, Stan Uryasev, Evangelos Sekeris.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    This article addresses challenges of estimating operational risk regulatory capital when a loss sample is truncated from below at a data collection threshold. Recent operational risk literature reports that the attempts to estimate loss distributions by the maximum likelihood method are not always successful under the truncation approach that accounts for the existence of censored losses—the likelihood surface is sometimes ascending with no global solution. The literature offers an alternative called the shifting approach, which estimates the loss distribution without taking into account censored losses. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the global solution to the likelihood maximization problem under the truncation approach when the true loss distribution is lognormal, and derive a practically explicit expression for the global solution. We show by a simulation study that, as the sample size increases, the capital bias by the truncation approach declines while the bias by the shifting approach does not.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12062   open full text
  • The Sluggish and Asymmetric Reaction of Life Annuity Prices to Changes in Interest Rates.
    Narat Charupat, Mark J. Kamstra, Moshe A. Milevsky.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 24, 2015
    Many assume that in the short run, annuity prices promptly and efficiently respond to changes in interest rates. Using a unique database of quotes, we show this is not the case. Prices are less sensitive to changes in rates than expected, and responses are asymmetric. Prices react more rapidly and with greater sensitivity to an increase than to a decrease in rates. The results are robust, but there is a small degree of heterogeneity in the responses of different insurance companies. When rates increase, larger firms are slightly quicker to improve prices. The opposite is true when rates decline. In sum, we show that the microstructure of annuity dynamics is more complicated than (simply) adding mortality credits to bond yields.
    February 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/jori.12061   open full text
  • The Pricing of Mortgage Insurance Premiums Under Systematic and Idiosyncratic Shocks.
    Ming Pu, Gang‐Zhi Fan, Chunsheng Ban.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 06, 2014
    The recent financial crisis has posed new challenges to the pricing issue of mortgage insurance premiums. By extending an option‐based approach to this pricing issue, we attempt to tackle several key challenges including the clustering of mortgage defaults, the diversification effect of underlying property pools, and mortgage insurers' information advantages. Our model partitions the volatility of collateralized property prices into idiosyncratic volatility and systematic volatility. Our results demonstrate that although the rising number of pooled mortgage loans can reduce the volatility of average default losses, the increasing correlation between the collateralized properties can lead to the volatility clustering of these losses.
    August 06, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12052   open full text
  • The Cost of Counterparty Risk and Collateralization in Longevity Swaps.
    Enrico Biffis, David Blake, Lorenzo Pitotti, Ariel Sun.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 06, 2014
    Derivative longevity risk solutions, such as bespoke and indexed longevity swaps, allow pension schemes, and annuity providers to swap out longevity risk, but introduce counterparty credit risk, which can be mitigated if not fully eliminated by collateralization. We examine the impact of bilateral default risk and collateral rules on the marking to market of longevity swaps, and show how longevity swap rates must be determined endogenously from the collateral flows associated with the marking‐to‐market procedure. For typical interest rate and mortality parameters, we find that the impact of collateralization is modest in the presence of symmetric default risk, but more pronounced when default risk and/or collateral rules are asymmetric. Our results suggest that the overall cost of collateralization is comparable with, and often much smaller than, that found in the interest rate swaps market, which may then provide the appropriate reference framework for the credit enhancement of both indemnity‐based and indexed longevity risk solutions.
    August 06, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12055   open full text
  • Who is Changing Health Insurance Coverage? Empirical Evidence on Policyholder Dynamics.
    Marcus C. Christiansen, Martin Eling, Jan‐Philipp Schmidt, Lorenz Zirkelbach.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 06, 2014
    Long‐term health insurance contracts provide policyholders with the option of lapsing coverage or switching to another tariff within the same insurance company. We empirically analyze policyholder behavior regarding contract commitment in a large data set of German private health insurance contracts. We show that short‐term as well as long‐term premium development, along with premium adjustment frequency, affect lapse and tariff switch rates. Moreover, the sales channel has a strong impact on switching behavior, indicating that policyholder choice is not fully independent of sales representatives. Our results are important for risk assessment and risk management of portfolios of health insurance contracts and provide better understanding of the dynamics of policyholder behavior in health insurance.
    August 06, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12053   open full text
  • The Income Elasticity of Nonlife Insurance: A Reassessment.
    Giovanni Millo.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 19, 2014
    In aggregate insurance regressions at the country level, the question whether insurance is a normal or superior good translates into whether income elasticity is significantly greater than one or not. Twenty‐five years after a seminal article, I reassess the income elasticity of nonlife insurance by means of homogeneous and heterogeneous versions of the common correlated effects estimator, controlling for common factors and individual trends and characterizing the average behavior of insurance markets while allowing for individual heterogeneity. The evidence supports the existence of a cointegrating behavior between insurance consumption and GDP and the view of nonlife insurance as a normal good.
    July 19, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12051   open full text
  • The Impact of the Financial Crisis and Natural Catastrophes on CAT Bonds.
    Marc Gürtler, Martin Hibbeln, Christine Winkelvos.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 17, 2014
    This article employs secondary market data to examine how natural catastrophes or financial crises affect CAT bond premiums. We find evidence that both the financial crisis and Hurricane Katrina significantly affected CAT bond premiums. The premium increase resulting from natural catastrophes can primarily be attributed to an increased coefficient of expected loss calculated by catastrophe modeling companies. Furthermore, our results indicate a positive relationship between corporate spreads and CAT bond premiums. Thus, CAT bonds should not be regarded as “zero‐beta” securities. Moreover, our results indicate that deal complexity, ratings, and the reinsurance cycle are significant drivers of CAT bond premiums.
    July 17, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12057   open full text
  • A Test of Asymmetric Learning in Competitive Insurance With Partial Information Sharing.
    Peng Shi, Wei Zhang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 17, 2014
    This article examines whether an insurer could gain advantageous information on repeat customers over its rivals in the Singapore automobile insurance market, which is featured by partial information sharing among insurers. We find that the insurer does update and accumulate more information regarding its policyholders’ riskiness through repeated observations and thus make higher profits with repeat customers especially those of lower risk. We also show that the higher profit is driven by the fact that low risks tend to stay longer with the insurer, and in the meanwhile, they are charged a premium higher than their actuarial risk level.
    July 17, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12056   open full text
  • Optimal Social Insurance for Heterogeneous Agents With Private Insurance.
    Brandon Lehr.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2014
    This article analytically characterizes optimal social insurance in an economy with both ex ante heterogeneity and ex post risk, decomposing the benefits of social insurance into a redistributive and insurance benefit. Agents exert effort to increase the likelihood of high outcome events and are additionally supplied actuarially fair private insurance for this earnings risk. This article is novel in its joint consideration of two sources of heterogeneity, two potential sources of insurance, and an endogenous ex post distribution of outcomes. The introduction of optimal private insurance eliminates the insurance benefit of social insurance, but leaves the redistributive benefit intact. An income effect induced by the crowding out of private insurance generates an additional benefit to social insurance when it takes the form of a linear income tax. Finally, numerical simulations illustrate how the relative contributions of ex ante and ex post risk differentially impact the welfare loss associated with setting optimal social insurance without recognizing the presence of private insurance.
    July 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12050   open full text
  • External Financing in the Life Insurance Industry: Evidence From the Financial Crisis.
    Thomas R. Berry‐Stölzle, Gregory P. Nini, Sabine Wende.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 07, 2014
    The financial crisis and subsequent recession generated sizable operating losses for life insurance companies, yet the consequences were far less significant than for other financial intermediaries. The ability to quickly generate new capital through external issuance and dividend reductions let life insurers maintain healthy levels of equity capital. We use this experience to examine the causes and consequences of external capital issuance by U.S. life insurance companies. We show that, in general, new capital is issued both to support the growth of new business and to replace capital depleted by operating losses. This second channel is particularly important during macroeconomic recessions. Notably, we do not find any evidence that insurers had difficulty generating new capital, unlike other financial service providers that required large amounts of public support. For life insurers, what changed following the financial crisis was the demand to raise external capital, but the supply of external capital appears to have remained constant.
    May 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12042   open full text
  • The Dynamics Of Microinsurance Demand In Developing Countries Under Liquidity Constraints And Insurer Default Risk.
    Yanyan Liu, Robert J. Myers.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 07, 2014
    We study the dynamics of microinsurance demand by risk‐averse agents who can borrow and lend subject to a liquidity constraint, and also perceive a risk of insurer default. Liquidity constraints and perceived insurer default both reduce the demand for insurance, possibly leading to nonparticipation. We also evaluate an alternative insurance design that allows agents to delay premium payment until the end of the insured period when income is realized and indemnities are paid. We show this alternative design increases insurance take‐up by relaxing the liquidity constraint and ameliorating concerns about insurer default. We also investigate the value of delayed premium payment, and the importance of the associated problem of reneging if the insured event does not occur, under a range of conditions.
    May 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12044   open full text
  • On Lawsuits, Corporate Governance, And Directors' And Officers' Liability Insurance.
    Stuart L. Gillan, Christine A. Panasian.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 07, 2014
    We examine whether information about firms' directors' and officers' (D&O) liability insurance coverage provides insights into the likelihood of shareholder lawsuits. Using Canadian firms, we find evidence that firms with D&O insurance coverage are more likely to be sued and that the likelihood of litigation increases with increased coverage. These findings are consistent with managerial opportunism or moral hazard related to the insurance purchase decision. We also find that higher premiums are associated with the likelihood of litigation, indicating that insurers price this behavior. Taken together, the findings suggest that coverage and premium levels have the potential to convey information about lawsuit likelihood, and a firm's governance quality, to the marketplace.
    May 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12043   open full text
  • Do the Better Insured Cause More Damage? Testing for Asymmetric Information in Car Insurance.
    Tibor Zavadil.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 20, 2014
    This article tests for the presence of asymmetric information in Dutch car insurance among senior drivers using several nonparametric tests based on conditional‐correlation approach. Since asymmetric information implies that more comprehensive coverage is associated with higher risk, we examine whether the better insured have a higher frequency of claims or cause more severe accidents. Using data on claim occurrences, incurred losses and written premiums, and controlling for the insureds’ experience rating, we do not find any evidence of asymmetric information in this market.
    March 20, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12040   open full text
  • Systemic Risk And The U.S. Insurance Sector.
    J. David Cummins, Mary A. Weiss.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 20, 2014
    This article examines the potential for the U.S. insurance industry to cause systemic risk events that spill over to other segments of the economy. We examine primary indicators of systemic risk as well as contributing factors that exacerbate vulnerability to systemic events. Evaluation of systemic risk is based on a detailed financial analysis of the insurance industry, its role in the economy, and the interconnectedness of insurers. The primary conclusion is that the core activities of U.S. insurers do not pose systemic risk. However, life insurers are vulnerable to intrasector crises, and both life and property–casualty insurers are vulnerable to reinsurance crises. Noncore activities such as financial guarantees and derivatives trading may cause systemic risk, and interconnectedness among financial institutions has grown significantly in recent years. To reduce systemic risk from noncore activities, regulators need to continue efforts to strengthen mechanisms for insurance group supervision.
    March 20, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12039   open full text
  • A Portfolio Optimization Approach Using Combinatorics With A Genetic Algorithm For Developing A Reinsurance Model.
    Lysa Porth, Jeffrey Pai, Milton Boyd.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 20, 2014
    Some insurance firms challenged with a portfolio of high‐variance risks face the classic trade‐off between risk spreading and risk retaining. Using crop insurance as an example, a new solution to this problem is undertaken to uncover an improved reinsurance design. Joint self‐managed reinsurance pooling and private reinsurance are combined in a portfolio approach utilizing combinatorial optimization with a genetic algorithm (Model C), achieving high surplus, high survival probability, and low deficit at ruin. This portfolio model may also be useful for other large natural disaster and weather‐related insurance portfolios, and other portfolio applications.
    March 20, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12037   open full text
  • Reinsurance Networks and Their Impact on Reinsurance Decisions: Theory and Empirical Evidence.
    Yijia Lin, Jifeng Yu, Manferd O. Peterson.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 18, 2014
    This article investigates the role of reinsurance networks in an insurer's reinsurance purchase decision. Drawing on network theory, we develop a framework that delineates how the pattern of linkages among reinsurers determines three reinsurance costs (loadings, contagion costs, and search and monitoring costs) and characterizes an insurer's optimal network structure. Consistent with empirical evidence based on longitudinal data from the U.S. property and casualty insurance industry, our model predicts an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the insurer's optimal percentage of reinsurance ceded and the number of its reinsurers. Moreover, we find that a linked network may be optimal ex ante even though linkages among reinsurers may spread financial contagion, supporting the model's prediction regarding social capital benefits associated with network cohesion. Our theoretical model and empirical results have implications for other networks such as loan sale market networks and over‐the‐counter dealer networks.
    March 18, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12032   open full text
  • The Capitalization Of Insurance Premiums In House Prices.
    Charles Nyce, Randy E. Dumm, G. Stacy Sirmans, Greg Smersh.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 15, 2014
    This study uses Miami‐Dade County, Florida home sales, and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation data for the period 2004 through 2009 to measure the capitalization effect of increases in premiums on house prices. Using hedonic pricing models, spatial autocorrelation models, and difference‐in‐differences models, we find that new information was conveyed to homeowners in the higher risk areas by the 2004/2005 storms and that consumers appear to use the insurance premium as a “risk signal.” We also find some support for the hypothesis that the risk of potential hurricane losses is communicated to potential homebuyers through windzone maps.
    March 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12041   open full text
  • Corporate Demand for Insurance: New Evidence From the U.S. Terrorism and Property Markets.
    Erwann Michel‐Kerjan, Paul Raschky, Howard Kunreuther.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2014
    Since the passage of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, corporate terrorism insurance is sold as a separate policy from commercial property coverage. In this article, we determine whether companies differ in their demand for property and terrorism insurance. Using a unique data set of insurance policies purchased by large U.S. firms, combined with financial information of the corporate clients and of the insurance provider, we apply a two‐stage least squares approach to obtain consistent estimates of premium elasticity of corporate demand for property and terrorism coverage. Our findings suggest that both are rather price inelastic and that corporate demand for terrorism insurance is significantly more price inelastic than demand for property insurance. We further find a negative relation between the solvency ratios of both property and terrorism risk coverage, with a stronger effect on the latter, indicating that companies use their ability to self‐insure as a substitute for market insurance. Our results are robust to the application of alternative estimators as well as changes in the econometric specifications.
    March 14, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12031   open full text
  • The Private Export Credit Insurance Effect on Trade.
    Koen J. M. van der Veer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 10, 2014
    International trade relies on trade finance (credit or insurance) by financial institutions. Evidence on the link between trade finance and trade is scarce, however, because trade finance data are hard to come by. This article uses a unique bilateral data set on worldwide exports insured by a world's leading private trade credit insurer in the period from 1992 to 2006. Applying various trade models, I consistently find a positive and statistically significant effect of private export credit insurance on exports. The results suggest that the private export credit insurance effect on trade is larger than the value of exports insured.
    March 10, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12034   open full text
  • Separation Without Exclusion in Financial Insurance.
    Eric Stephens, James R. Thompson.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 10, 2014
    This article develops a model of linearly priced financial insurance sold by default‐prone insurers. It shows that when insurers differ in their default probabilities there can exist equilibria in which different risk types partially or completely self‐sort into insurance contracts offered by different insurers. Partial separation can occur when insurer default and insurance risks are uncorrelated. Full separation is possible when they are correlated. For example, low‐risk insured parties may match with higher default‐risk insurers, while high‐risk insured parties match with lower default‐risk insurers.
    March 10, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12038   open full text
  • The Valuation Implications Of Enterprise Risk Management Maturity.
    Mark Farrell, Ronan Gallagher.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 10, 2014
    Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is the discipline by which enterprises monitor, analyze, and control risks from across the enterprise, with the goal of identifying underlying correlations and thus optimizing the risk‐taking behavior in a portfolio context. This study analyzes the valuation implications of ERM Maturity. We use data from the industry leading Risk and Insurance Management Society Risk Maturity Model over the period from 2006 to 2011, which scores firms on a five‐point maturity scale. Our results suggest that firms that have reached mature levels of ERM are exhibiting a higher firm value, as measured by Tobin's Q. We find a statistically significant positive relation to the magnitude of 25 percent. Upon decomposition of the maturity score, we find that the most important aspects of ERM from a valuation perspective relate to the level of top–down executive engagement and the resultant cascade of ERM culture throughout the firm. Firms that have successfully integrated the ERM process into both their strategic activities and everyday practices display superior ability in uncovering risk dependencies and correlations across the entire enterprise and as a consequence enhanced value when undertaking the ERM maturity journey ceteris paribus.
    March 10, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12035   open full text
  • Cyclicity in the French Property–Liability Insurance Industry: New Findings Over the Recent Period.
    Catherine Bruneau, Nadia Sghaier.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 25, 2014
    This article reinvestigates the presence and the causes of the underwriting cycle in the French property–liability insurance industry as displayed by the combined ratio for the 1963–2008 period. The question is still a timely issue if we refer to regulation issues and the recent proposals in the Solvency framework to take into account the fluctuations of the profitability in specifying the solvency capital requirement. In the literature, two approaches are traditionally adopted to investigate the underwriting cycle. The first one refers to an endogenous characterization of the cyclical properties from an AR(2) model. The second one claims that the cycle in the property–liability insurance has exogenous sources related to the financial markets and the general economy. In this article, we reconcile the two approaches by using a smooth transition regression model. This model shows that the AR(2) model is relevant in a first regime where the capacity constraint is binding. In contrast, the fluctuations in the combined ratio are positively influenced by the lagged stock market return in a second regime where the capacity is not constrained, as for the most recent period. Moreover, we find that the current capacity is related to the lagged inflation rate in the latter case. These results confirm the idea that the European rules regarding the solvency capital requirement for insurance companies should take into account the state of the economy and the financial markets.
    February 25, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12027   open full text
  • Dynamic Risk Management: Investment, Capital Structure, and Hedging in the Presence of Financial Frictions.
    Diego Amaya, Geneviève Gauthier, Thomas‐Olivier Léautier.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 25, 2014
    This article develops a dynamic risk management model to determine a firm's optimal risk management strategy. This strategy has two elements. First, for low‐leverage values, the firm fully hedges its operating cash flow exposure, due to the convexity of its cost of capital. When leverage exceeds a very high threshold, the firm gambles for resurrection and stops hedging. Second, the firm manages its capital structure through dividend distributions and investment. When leverage is low, the firm replaces depreciated assets, fully invests in opportunities if they arise, and distribute dividends, all of these together to achieve its optimal capital structure. As leverage increases, the firm stops paying dividends, while fully investing. After a certain leverage, the firm also reduces investment until it stops investing completely. The model predictions are consistent with empirical observations.
    February 25, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12025   open full text
  • Testing for Asymmetric Information Using “Unused Observables” in Insurance Markets: Evidence from the U.K. Annuity Market.
    Amy Finkelstein, James Poterba.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 18, 2014
    This article tests for asymmetric information in the U.K. annuity market of the 1990s by trying to identify “unused observables,” attributes of individual insurance buyers that are correlated both with subsequent claims experience and with insurance demand but that insurance companies did not use to set insurance prices. Unlike the widely used positive correlation test for asymmetric information, which searches for a positive correlation between insurance demand and risk experience, the unused observables test is not confounded by heterogeneity in individual preference parameters that may affect insurance demand. We identify residential location as an unused observable in the U.K. annuity market of this period. Even though residential location was observed by all market participants, the decision not to condition prices on it created the same types of market inefficiencies that arise when annuity buyers have private information about mortality risk. Our findings raise questions about how insurance companies select the set of buyer attributes that they use in setting policy prices. In the decade following the period that we study, U.K. insurance companies changed their pricing practices and began to condition annuity prices on a buyer's postcode.
    February 18, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12030   open full text
  • How Does Price Presentation Influence Consumer Choice? The Case of Life Insurance Products.
    Carin Huber, Nadine Gatzert, Hato Schmeiser.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 18, 2014
    Life insurance is an important product for many individuals, both to protect dependents against the premature death of an income producer and to provide savings in later retirement years. These kinds of products, however, can be quite complex. Regulatory authorities and consumers currently ask for more cost transparency with respect to product components (e.g., risk premium for death benefits, savings premium, cost of investment guarantee) and administration costs. The aim of this article is to measure the effects of different forms of presenting the price of life insurance contract components and especially of embedded investment guarantees on consumer evaluation of those products. The intention is to understand the extent to which price presentation affects consumer demand. This is done by means of an experimental study and by focusing on unit‐linked life insurance products. Our findings reveal that contrary to other consumer products, there are no precise effects of “price bundling” and “price optic” on consumer evaluation and purchase intention in the case of life insurance. Consumer experience and price perception, however, yield a significant moderating effect.
    February 18, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12026   open full text
  • Partial Benefits in the Social Security Disability Insurance Program.
    Na Yin.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 18, 2014
    The current U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance program is an all‐or‐nothing system that has been criticized for creating strong work disincentives. In an empirically grounded and calibrated life‐cycle model, I simulate behavioral responses to a partial disability benefit system, a policy alternative to the current program, which allows individuals to claim partial disability and combine earnings with disability benefits. Simulation results show financial savings for the program as well as welfare improvements for individuals with disabilities.
    February 18, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12028   open full text
  • Board Size, Firm Risk, and Equity Discount.
    Arun Upadhyay.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 15, 2014
    Prior literature documents that larger boards pursue conservative investment policies and that their decision outcomes are moderate, which promote an environment of risk aversion. I argue that this risk aversion hurts equity holders when firms hold a larger amount of long‐term debt. Addressing potential endogeneity problems associated with board size, I find an equity discount associated with larger boards in firms that have greater amounts of long‐term debt. On the other hand, larger boards are associated with an equity premium when firms have a greater short‐term debt‐to‐assets ratio. The equity discount associated with larger boards disappears in firms with no long‐term debt. Further analysis also indicates that firms with larger boards enjoy a better credit rating and a lower realized cost of debt. Overall, analysis in this study suggests that the association between board size and equity value is a function of a firm's debt structure.
    February 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12033   open full text
  • A Proposal on How the Regulator Should Set Minimum Interest Rate Guarantees in Participating Life Insurance Contracts.
    Hato Schmeiser, Joël Wagner.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 15, 2014
    We consider a contingent claim model framework for participating life insurance contracts and assume a competitive market with minimum solvency requirements as provided by Solvency II. In a first step, the implications of the regulator's imposing a particular interest rate guarantee on the insurer's asset allocation are analyzed in a reference situation. We study the sensitivity of the interaction between the interest rate guarantee and the asset allocation when the risk‐free interest rate changes. Particular attention is paid to the current market situation where the guaranteed interest rate is often close to the risk‐free interest rate. In a second step, we assess at what level the interest rate guarantee should be set by the regulator in order to maximize policyholders' utility. We show that the results yielded by the proposed concept to derive an optimal value for the interest rate guarantee are very stable for various model parameters.
    February 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12036   open full text
  • Insurance Premium Calculation Using Credibility Analysis: An Example From Livestock Mortality Insurance.
    Jeffrey Pai, Milton Boyd, Lysa Porth.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 16, 2014
    A major problem facing livestock producers is animal mortality risk. Livestock mortality insurance is still at the initial stages, and premium computation approaches are still relatively new and will require more research. This study seeks to provide a first step for developing a better understanding of livestock insurance as a solution to mortality risk, as it explores improved methods for livestock mortality insurance modeling procedures, and premium computation, using credibility analysis. The purpose of this study is to develop improved estimates for livestock mortality insurance premiums for Canada under a credibility framework. We illustrate our approach through one example using livestock data from 1999 to 2007.
    January 16, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jori.12024   open full text
  • Forecasting Mortgage Securitization Risk Under Systematic Risk And Parameter Uncertainty.
    Daniel Rösch, Harald Scheule.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 26, 2013
    The global financial crisis exposed financial institutions to severe unexpected losses in relation to mortgage securitizations and derivatives. This article finds that risk models such as ratings are exposed to a large degree of systematic risk and parameter uncertainty. An out‐of‐sample forecasting exercise of the financial crisis shows that a simple approach addressing both issues is able to produce ranges for risk measures consistent with realized losses. This explains how financial markets were taken by surprise in relation to realized losses.
    July 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12009.x   open full text
  • Coherent Pricing Of Life Settlements Under Asymmetric Information.
    Nan Zhu, Daniel Bauer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 26, 2013
    Although life settlements are advertised to deliver a profitable investment opportunity with a low correlation to market systematic risk, recent investigations reveal a discrepancy of expected and realized returns. While thus far this discrepancy has been attributed to the (allegedly) poor quality of the underlying life expectancy estimates, we present a different explanation of the seemingly high reported expected returns based on {adverse selection. In particular, we provide a coherent pricing mechanism and pricing formulas in the presence of asymmetric information with respect to the underlying life expectancies. Therefore, our study sheds light on the nature of the “unique risks” within life settlements as recently discussed in the financial press.
    July 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12010.x   open full text
  • Willingness To Pay For Insurance In Denmark.
    Jan V. Hansen, Rasmus H. Jacobsen, Morten I. Lau.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 26, 2013
    We estimate how much Danish households are willing to pay for auto, home, and house insurance. We use a unique combination of claims data from a large Danish insurance company, measures of individual risk attitudes and discount rates from a field experiment with a representative sample of the adult Danish population, and information on household income and wealth from registers at Statistics Denmark. The results show that the willingness to pay is marginally higher than the actuarially fair value under expected utility theory, but significantly higher under rank‐dependent utility theory, and up to 600 percent higher than the actuarially fair value.
    July 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12011.x   open full text
  • Solvency Analysis And Prediction In Property–Casualty Insurance: Incorporating Economic And Market Predictors.
    Li Zhang, Norma Nielson.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 26, 2013
    This article extends the insolvency prediction literature by incorporating macroeconomic conditions and state‐specific factors. The models achieve greater generalizability and predictive accuracy than earlier research while giving fewer false positives. At the firm level, we find insurers with less diversified business, sufficient cash flow, high return on equity, lower leverage, fewer failed Insurance Regulatory Information System ratio tests, and membership in a larger group are less likely to become insolvent. Our findings support the argument that insolvency likelihood increases for insurers domiciled in states with stricter solvency supervision and/or states with less favorable insurance market conditions, and during soft markets; insolvency risk is negatively related to the slope of the yield curve. Our findings also imply that insurers respond efficiently to changes in such market factors as market return, inflation, and catastrophic losses.
    July 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12012.x   open full text
  • The Life Care Annuity: A New Empirical Examination Of An Insurance Innovation That Addresses Problems In The Markets For Life Annuities And Long‐Term Care Insurance.
    Jason Brown, Mark Warshawsky.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 26, 2013
    The life care annuity—the integration of the life annuity with long‐term care insurance coverage—is intended to deal with major problems in the currently separate markets for life annuities and long‐term care insurance. The integration would allow the inclusion of most of the population currently rejected by underwriting—those in poor health or lifestyles but who would not go immediately into long‐term care claim—who also have lower life expectancies. We make use of the Health and Retirement Study, on individuals in retirement and their disability incidence, exploiting the panel nature of the survey to estimate transition probabilities in and out of disability states according to numerous demographic and health characteristics. This allows for analysis of disability and mortality risk across a number of dimensions. We find that different risk groups at age 65 have similar projected long‐term care expenses, but that the level‐periodic‐premium structure of most long‐term care insurance policies creates incentives for individuals to separate into different risk pools according to observable characteristics, justifying the underwriting observed on the market. Yet we also find that gender‐rated life care annuities could succeed in pooling risks currently segmented in the market for long‐term care insurance, thus qualifying individuals at or near retirement for permanent long‐term care insurance coverage who do not currently qualify, and allowing for life annuities to be purchased more cheaply than in the stand‐alone annuity market now subject to adverse selection.
    July 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12013.x   open full text
  • Mortality Modeling With Non‐Gaussian Innovations And Applications To The Valuation Of Longevity Swaps.
    Chou‐Wen Wang, Hong‐Chih Huang, I‐Chien Liu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 21, 2013
    This article provides an iterative fitting algorithm to generate maximum likelihood estimates under the Cox regression model and employs non‐Gaussian distributions—the jump diffusion (JD), variance gamma (VG), and normal inverse Gaussian (NIG) distributions—to model the error terms of the Renshaw and Haberman (2006) (RH) model. In terms of mean absolute percentage error, the RH model with non‐Gaussian innovations provides better mortality projections, using 1900–2009 mortality data from England and Wales, France, and Italy. Finally, the lower hedge costs of longevity swaps according to the RH model with non‐Gaussian innovations are not only based on the lower swap curves implied by the best prediction model, but also in terms of the fatter tails of the unexpected losses it generates.
    July 21, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12002.x   open full text
  • Why (Re)Insurance Is Not Systemic.
    Denis Kessler.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 21, 2013
    The traditional model of (re)insurance lacks the elements that make a financial institution systemically important: risks are effectively pulverized; liabilities tend to be prefunded, which eliminates most of the leverage in the traditional sense; and active asset‐liability management reduces most of the liquidity mismatch that traditionally propagates systemic risk. (Re)insurers that have stuck to this traditional business model have successfully weathered the crisis, even playing a stabilizing role. Unfortunately, this is not sufficiently recognized in the current IAIS/FSB1 debate on assessing systemic risk in the (re)insurance sector.
    July 21, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12007.x   open full text
  • Information Risk and the Cost of Capital.
    David L. Eckles, Martin Halek, Rongrong Zhang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 11, 2013
    This article applies a unique accruals measure to empirically test whether accruals quality affects the cost of capital for property–liability insurers. We utilize insurer loss reserve errors to accurately measure the quality of accruals. This measure, as well as conventional accruals measures, is used to investigate the extent to which accruals quality is priced into both debt and equity capital. We find that accruals quality is priced into debt capital; however, we find virtually no evidence that accruals quality is priced into equity capital. Our results should be of particular interest to insurers as it affects pricing ability. Specifically, insurers who provide primary debtholders (i.e., policyholders) less information risk are able to command higher prices. Furthermore, our results suggest that insurance is not a diversifiable asset.
    July 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01526.x   open full text
  • Living With Ambiguity: Pricing Mortality‐Linked Securities With Smooth Ambiguity Preferences.
    Hua Chen, Michael Sherris, Tao Sun, Wenge Zhu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 10, 2013
    Mortality is a stochastic process. We have imprecise knowledge about the probability distribution of mortality rates in the future. Mortality risk, therefore, can be defined in a broader term of ambiguity. In this article, we investigate the effects of ambiguity and ambiguity aversion on prices of mortality‐linked securities. Ambiguity may arise from parameter uncertainty due to a finite sample of data and inaccurate old‐age mortality rates. We compare the price of a mortality bond in three scenarios: (1) no parameter uncertainty, (2) parameter uncertainty with Bayesian updates, and (3) parameter uncertainty with the smooth ambiguity preference. We use the indifference pricing approach to derive the minimum ask price and the maximum bid price, and adopt the economic pricing method to compute the equilibrium price that clears the market. We reveal the connection between the indifference pricing approach and the economic pricing approach and find that ambiguity aversion has a much smaller effect on prices of mortality‐linked securities than risk aversion in our example.
    July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12001.x   open full text
  • The Effect of Secondary Markets on Equity‐Linked Life Insurance With Surrender Guarantees.
    Christian Hilpert, Jing Li, Alexander Szimayer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 10, 2013
    Many equity‐linked life insurance products offer the possibility to surrender policies prematurely. Secondary markets for policies with surrender guarantees influence both policyholders and insurers. We show that secondary markets lead to a gap in policy value between insurer and policyholder. Insurers increase premiums to adjust for higher surrender rates of customers and optimized surrender behavior by investors acquiring the policies on secondary markets. Hence, the existence of secondary markets is not necessarily profitable for the primary policyholders. The result depends on the demand for and the supply of the contracts brought to the secondary markets.
    July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12003.x   open full text
  • Framing And Claiming: How Information‐Framing Affects Expected Social Security Claiming Behavior.
    Jeffrey R. Brown, Arie Kapteyn, Olivia S. Mitchell.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 10, 2013
    This article provides evidence that Social Security benefit claiming decisions are strongly affected by framing and are thus inconsistent with expected utility theory. Using a randomized experiment that controls for both observable and unobservable differences across individuals, we find that the use of a “breakeven analysis” encourages early claiming. Respondents are more likely to delay when later claiming is framed as a gain, and the claiming age is anchored at older ages. Additionally, the financially less literate, individuals with credit card debt, and those with lower earnings are more influenced by framing than others.
    July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12004.x   open full text
  • Longevity Selection And Liabilities In Public Sector Pension Funds.
    Joelle H. Fong, John Piggott, Michael Sherris.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 10, 2013
    This article assesses the cost and risk faced by public sector, defined benefit plan providers arising from uncertain mortality, including longevity selection, mortality improvements, and unexpected systematic shocks. Using longitudinal microdata on Australian pensioners, we quantify the extent of longevity selection at both aggregate and scheme level. We also show that as the age‐membership structure in a pension scheme matures, scheme‐specific longevity selection risk and systematic shocks become quantitatively more important and have larger consequences for plan liabilities than aggregate selection risk or the impact of mortality improvements.
    July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12005.x   open full text
  • Asymmetric Information in the Market for Automobile Insurance: Evidence From Germany.
    Martin Spindler, Joachim Winter, Steffen Hagmayer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 10, 2013
    Asymmetric information is an important phenomenon in insurance markets, but the empirical evidence on the extent of adverse selection and moral hazard is mixed. Because of its implications for pricing, contract design, and regulation, it is crucial to test for asymmetric information in specific insurance markets. In this article, we analyze a recent data set on automobile insurance in Germany, the largest such market in Europe. We present and compare a variety of statistical testing procedures. We find that the extent of asymmetric information depends on coverage levels and on the specific risks covered, which enhances the previous literature. Within the framework of Chiappori et al. (2006), we also test whether drivers have realistic expectations concerning their loss distribution, and we analyze the market structure.
    July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12006.x   open full text
  • Economic Pricing of Mortality‐Linked Securities: A Tâtonnement Approach.
    Rui Zhou, Johnny Siu‐Hang Li, Ken Seng Tan.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 10, 2013
    In previous research on pricing mortality‐linked securities, the no‐arbitrage approach is often used. However, this approach, which takes market prices as given, is difficult to implement in today's embryonic market where there are few traded securities. In this article, we tackle the pricing problem from a different angle by considering methods that are more related to fundamental economic concepts. Specifically, we treat the pricing work as aWalrasian tâtonnement process, in which prices are determined through a gradual calibration of supply and demand. We illustrate the proposed pricing framework with a hypothetical mortality‐linked security and mortality data from the U.S. population.
    July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.12008.x   open full text
  • Incorporating Longevity Risk and Medical Information Into Life Settlement Pricing.
    Patrick L. Brockett, Shuo‐li Chuang, Yinglu Deng, Richard D. MacMinn.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2013
    A life settlement is a financial transaction in which the owner of a life insurance policy sells his or her policy to a third party. We present an overview of the life settlement market, exhibit its susceptibility to longevity risk, and discuss it as part of a new asset class of longevity‐related securities. We discuss pricing where the investor has updated information concerning the expected life expectancy of the insured as well as perhaps other medical information obtained from a medical underwriter. We show how to incorporate this information into the investor's valuation in a rigorous and statistically justified manner. To incorporate medical information, we apply statistical information theory to adjust an appropriate prespecified standard mortality table so as to obtain a new mortality table that exactly reflects the known medical information. We illustrate using several mortality tables including a new extension of the Lee–Carter model that allows for jumps in mortality and longevity over time. The information theoretically adjusted mortality table has a distribution consistent with the underwriter's projected life expectancy or other medical underwriter information and is as indistinguishable as possible from the prespecified mortality model. An analysis using several different potential standard tables and medical information sets illustrates the robustness and versatility of the method.
    July 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01522.x   open full text
  • The Effectiveness of Gap Insurance With Respect to Basis Risk in a Shareholder Value Maximization Setting.
    Nadine Gatzert, Ralf Kellner.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2013
    The purchase of index‐linked alternative risk transfer instruments can lead to basis risk, if the insurer's loss is not fully dependent on the index. One way to reduce basis risk is to additionally purchase gap insurance, which fills the gap between an insurer's actual loss and the index‐linked instrument's payout. The previous literature detects gains in the effectiveness of this hedging strategy in a mean–variance framework. The aim of this article is to extend this analysis and to examine the effectiveness of gap insurance in a shareholder value maximization framework under solvency constraints. Our results show that purchasing gap insurance can generally increase the hedging effectiveness in multiple ways by reducing basis risk, thus increasing shareholder value and, at the same time, lowering shortfall risk.
    July 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01523.x   open full text
  • Informed Intermediation of Longevity Exposures.
    Enrico Biffis, David Blake.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2013
    We examine pension buyout transactions and longevity risk securitization in a common framework, emphasizing the role played by asymmetries in capital requirements and mortality forecasting technology. The results are used to develop a coherent model of intermediation of longevity exposures, between defined benefit pension plans and capital market investors, through insurers operating in the pension buyout market. We derive several predictions consistent with the recent empirical evidence on pension buyouts and offer insights on the role of buyout firms and regulation in the emerging market for longevity‐linked securities. A multiperiod version of the model is used to explore the effects of longevity risk securitization on the capacity of the pension buyout market.
    July 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01524.x   open full text
  • Robust Hedging of Longevity Risk.
    Andrew J. G. Cairns.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2013
    We consider situations where a pension plan has opted to hedge its longevity risk using an index‐based longevity hedging instrument such as a q‐forward or deferred longevity swap. The use of index‐based hedges gives rise to basis risk, but benefits, potentially, from lower costs to the hedger and greater liquidity. We focus on quantification of optimal hedge ratios and hedge effectiveness and investigate how robust these quantities are relative to inclusion of recalibration risk, parameter uncertainty, and Poisson risk. We find that strategies are robust relative to the inclusion of parameter uncertainty and Poisson risk. In contrast, single‐instrument hedging strategies are found to lack robustness relative to the inclusion of recalibration risk at the future valuation date, although we also demonstrate that some hedging instruments are more robust than others. To address this problem, we develop multi‐instrument hedging strategies that are robust relative to recalibration risk.
    July 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01525.x   open full text
  • Reflexivity in Competition‐Originated Underwriting Cycles.
    Vsevolod K. Malinovskii.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2013
    This article addresses the fundamental observation that aggressive newcom‐ ers seeking greater market share trigger the industry response of reducing rates that may gradually fall below marginal cost. In this study, the concept of reflexivity as connection between the participants’ thinking and the situation in which they participate is applied. This article suggests applying as an insurance regulation technique, while the competition‐originated cycle is in its early stage, the triplets of year‐end market share, profit, and solvency indicators. It emphasizes the need for applying all these characteristics together, rather than the first two.
    July 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01527.x   open full text
  • Tax Sharing in Insurance Markets: A Useful Parameterization.
    Christelle Viauroux.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 01, 2013
    We use a principal–agent framework to evaluate the economic impacts of imposing a tax on insurance payment in presence of moral hazard using a Gamma conditional distribution of losses. Our results show that any tax paid by the insured would lower his effort to prevent loss, hence increasing insurance payments and decreasing profits. This result is reinforced as the insured becomes more risk averse unless the distribution of losses is uniform. We find that any decrease in the insurer's tax share would generate an overall decrease in welfare unless the insured characteristics prevent him from reacting to the policy.
    July 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01528.x   open full text
  • The New Life Market.
    David Blake, Andrew Cairns, Guy Coughlan, Kevin Dowd, Richard MacMinn.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    The huge economic significance of longevity risk for corporations, governments, and individuals has begun to be recognized and quantified. By virtue of its size and prevalence, longevity risk is the most significant life‐related risk exposure in financial terms and poses a potential threat to the whole system of retirement income provision. This article reviews the birth and development of the Life Market, the new market related to the transfer of longevity and mortality risks. We note that the emergence of a traded market in longevity‐linked capital market instruments could act as a catalyst to help facilitate the development of annuity markets both in the developed and the developing world and protect the long‐term viability of retirement income provision globally.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01514.x   open full text
  • Insurance, Consumer Search, and Equilibrium Price Distributions.
    Ş. Nuray Akın, Brennan C. Platt.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    We examine a service market with two frictions: search is required to obtain price quotes, and insurance coverage for the service reduces household search effort. While fewer draws from a price distribution will directly raise a household's average price, the indirect effect of reduced search on price competition has a much greater impact, accounting for at least 89 percent of increased average expenditures. In this environment, a monopolist insurer will exacerbate the moral hazard by offering full insurance. A competitive insurance market typically results in partial insurance and significant price dispersion, yet a second‐best contract would offer even less insurance coverage.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01515.x   open full text
  • Optimal Design of the Attribution of Pension Fund Performance to Employees.
    Heinz Müller, David Schiess.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    The article analyzes risk sharing in a defined contribution pension fund in continuous time. According to a prespecified attribution scheme, the interest rate paid on the employees' accounts is a linear function of the fund's investment performance. For each attribution scheme, the pension fund maximizes the expected utility and the employees derive utility from their savings accounts. It turns out that all Pareto‐optimal attribution schemes are characterized by the same optimal participation rate. We derive the total welfare gain that installs from replacing no participation with optimal participation. This welfare gain can be quantified and is substantial for reasonable parameter values.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01516.x   open full text
  • Heterogeneity of the Accident Externality from Driving.
    Rachel J. Huang, Larry Y. Tzeng, Kili C. Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    This article examines the accident externality from driving in terms of loss probability and severity by using a unique individual‐level data set with more than 3 million observations from Taiwan. Two types of accident externality are, respectively, measured: the average number of kilometers driven per month per vehicle and the total number of speeding tickets per month. For both variables, we find significant evidence to support the existence of the accident externality. Moreover, we find that the accident externality is heterogeneous in terms of the vehicles’ characteristics.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01517.x   open full text
  • Estimating Outstanding Claim Liabilities: The Role of Unobserved Risk Factors.
    Laura Spierdijk, Ruud H. Koning.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    This article proposes a new method for estimating claim liabilities. Our approach is based on the observation from contract theory that there is information asymmetry between the insurer and the policyholder about the risks incurred by the latter. We show that unobserved heterogeneity allows for a form of experience learning that can reduce this asymmetry, which makes it easier for the insurer to distinguish between high‐risk and low‐risk claimants. We evaluate our approach in the context of disability insurance for self‐employed and show that it results in more accurate best estimates of outstanding claim liabilities.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01518.x   open full text
  • Risk Measurement and Management of Operational Risk in Insurance Companies From an Enterprise Perspective.
    Nadine Gatzert, Andreas Kolb.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    Operational risk can substantially impact an insurer's risk situation and is now increasingly in the focus of insurance companies, especially due to new European risk‐based regulatory framework Solvency II. The aim of this article is to model and examine the effects of operational risk on fair premiums and solvency capital requirements under Solvency II. In particular, three different approaches of deriving solvency capital requirements are analyzed: the Solvency II standard model, a partial internal model, and a full internal model. This analysis is not only of relevance for Solvency II, but also regarding an insurer's Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) that is not only planned in Solvency II, but also by the NAIC in the United States. The analysis emphasizes that diversification plays a central role and that operational risk measurement and management is highly relevant for insurers and should be integrated in an enterprise risk management framework.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01519.x   open full text
  • Asymmetric Information, Self‐selection, and Pricing of Insurance Contracts: The Simple No‐Claims Case.
    Catherine Donnelly, Martin Englund, Jens Perch Nielsen, Carsten Tanggaard.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 20, 2013
    This article presents an optional bonus‐malus contract based on a priori risk classification of the underlying insurance contract. By inducing self‐selection, the purchase of the bonus‐malus contract can be used as a screening device. This gives an even better pricing performance than both an experience rating scheme and a classical no‐claims bonus system. An application to the Danish automobile insurance market is considered.
    June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2013.01520.x   open full text
  • Managing Capital Market and Longevity Risks in a Defined Benefit Pension Plan.
    Samuel H. Cox, Yijia Lin, Ruilin Tian, Jifeng Yu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 10, 2013
    This article proposes a model for a defined benefit pension plan to minimize total funding variation while controlling expected total pension cost and funding downside risk throughout the life of a pension cohort. With this setup, we first investigate the plan’s optimal contribution and asset allocation strategies, given the projection of stochastic asset returns and random mortality evolutions. To manage longevity risk, the plan can use either the ground‐up hedging strategy or the excess‐risk hedging strategy. Our numerical examples demonstrate that the plan transfers more unexpected longevity risk with the excess‐risk strategy due to its lower total hedge cost and more attractive structure.
    April 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01508.x   open full text
  • Valuation and Hedging of the Ruin‐Contingent Life Annuity (RCLA).
    H. Huang, M. A. Milevsky, T. S. Salisbury.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 10, 2013
    We analyze an insurance instrument called a ruin‐contingent life annuity (RCLA), which is a stand‐alone version of the option embedded inside a variable annuity (VA) but without the buyer having to transfer investments to the insurance company. The annuitant's payoff from an RCLA is a dollar of income per year for life, deferred until a certain wealth process hits zero. We derive the partial differential equation (PDE) satisfied by the RCLA value assuming no arbitrage, describe efficient numerical techniques, and provide estimates for RCLA values. The practical motivation is twofold. First, numerous insurance companies are now offering similar contingent deferred annuities (CDAs). Second, the U.S. Treasury and Department of Labor have encouraged DC plans to offer longevity insurance to participants and the RCLA might be the ideal product.
    April 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01509.x   open full text
  • Corporate Governance and Risk Taking: Evidence From the U.K. and German Insurance Markets.
    Martin Eling, Sebastian D. Marek.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 10, 2013
    We analyze the impact of factors related to corporate governance (i.e., compensation, monitoring, and ownership structure) on risk taking in the insurance industry. We measure asset, product, and financial risk in insurance companies and employ a structural equation model in which corporate governance is modeled as a latent factor. Based on this model, we present empirical evidence on the link between corporate governance and risk taking, considering insurers from two large European insurance markets. Higher levels of compensation, increased monitoring (more independent boards with more meetings), and more blockholders are associated with lower risk taking. Our empirical results provide justification for including factors related to corporate governance in insurance regulation.
    April 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01510.x   open full text
  • Lifecycle Portfolio Choice With Systematic Longevity Risk and Variable Investment‐Linked Deferred Annuities.
    Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, Vasily Kartashov.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2013
    This article assesses the impact of variable investment‐linked deferred annuities (VILDAs) on lifecycle consumption and portfolio allocation, allowing for systematic longevity risk. Under a self‐insurance strategy, insurers set premiums to reduce the chance that benefits paid exceed provider reserves. Under a participating approach, the provider avoids taking systematic longevity risk by adjusting benefits in response to unanticipated mortality shocks. Young households with participating annuities average one‐third higher excess consumption, while 80‐year‐olds increase consumption about 75 percent. Many households would prefer to participate in systematic longevity risk unless insurers can hedge it at a very low price.
    March 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01502.x   open full text
  • Systemic Risk and the Interconnectedness Between Banks and Insurers: An Econometric Analysis.
    Hua Chen, J. David Cummins, Krupa S. Viswanathan, Mary A. Weiss.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2013
    This article uses daily market value data on credit default swap spreads and intraday stock prices to measure systemic risk in the insurance sector. Using the systemic risk measure, we examine the interconnectedness between banks and insurers with Granger causality tests. Based on linear and nonlinear causality tests, we find evidence of significant bidirectional causality between insurers and banks. However, after correcting for conditional heteroskedasticity, the impact of banks on insurers is stronger and of longer duration than the impact of insurers on banks. Stress tests confirm that banks create significant systemic risk for insurers but not vice versa.
    March 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01503.x   open full text
  • What Policy Features Determine Life Insurance Lapse? An Analysis of the German Market.
    Martin Eling, Dieter Kiesenbauer.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2013
    With the largest data set ever used for this purpose (covering more than 1 million contracts), we analyze the impact of product and policyholder characteristics on lapse in the life insurance market. The data are provided by a German life insurer and cover two periods of market turmoil that we incorporate into our proportional hazards and generalized linear models. The results show that product characteristics such as product type or contract age and policyholder characteristics such as age or gender are important drivers for lapse rates. Our findings improve the understanding of lapse drivers and might be used by insurance managers and regulators for value‐ and risk‐based management.
    March 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01504.x   open full text
  • The Relationship Between Regulatory Pressure and Insurer Risk Taking.
    Wen‐Chang Lin, Yi‐Hsun Lai, Michael R. Powers.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2013
    The article examines the risk‐taking behavior of property–liability insurers in the presence of risk‐based capital regulation. An option pricing model is developed to evaluate the expected regulatory cost and predict a nonlinear relationship between regulatory pressure and insurers’ risk taking. We then conduct an empirical test using the simultaneous threshold regression. The result shows that there is a threshold effect of regulatory pressure on insurer risk taking. Poorly capitalized insurers seem to be aware of their proximity to regulatory interventions but do not fully respond to the impending regulatory pressure. This implies either regulatory interventions are not costly enough or they are too late, or both.
    March 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01505.x   open full text
  • Scenario Analysis in the Measurement of Operational Risk Capital: A Change of Measure Approach.
    Kabir K. Dutta, David F. Babbel.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2013
    At large financial institutions, operational risk is gaining the same importance as market and credit risk in the capital calculation. Although scenario analysis is an important tool for financial risk measurement, its use in the measurement of operational risk capital has been arbitrary and often inaccurate. We propose a method that combines scenario analysis with historical loss data. Using the Change of Measure approach, we evaluate the impact of each scenario on the total estimate of operational risk capital. The method can be used in stress‐testing, what‐if assessment for scenario analysis, and Loss Given Default estimates used in credit evaluations.
    March 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01506.x   open full text
  • Insurance Ratemaking and a Gini Index.
    Edward W. (Jed) Frees, Glenn Meyers, A. David Cummings.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. March 14, 2013
    Welfare economics uses Lorenz curves to display skewed income distributions and Gini indices to summarize the skewness. This article extends the Lorenz curve and Gini index by ordering insurance risks; the ordering variable is a risk‐based score relative to price, known as a relativity. The new relativity‐based measures can cope with adverse selection and quantify potential profit. Specifically, we show that the Gini index is proportional to a correlation between the relativity and an out‐of‐sample profit (price in excess of loss). A detailed example using homeowners insurance demonstrates the utility of these new measures.
    March 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01507.x   open full text
  • Pension Conversion, Termination, and Wealth Transfers.
    Joel T. Harper, Stephen D. Treanor.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 14, 2013
    This article explores the motivation to change their defined benefit pension plan by either terminating the plan and replacing it with a defined contribution plan or converting it to a cash balance plan. Using Form 5500 data as well as firm financial data, we find firms wishing to change their defined benefit plans are motivated by potential wealth transfer and tax implications. Firms terminating pension plans tend to have lower potential wealth transfers and lower taxes than firms converting to a cash balance plan, indicating a desire to modify the implicit contract instead of terminating the plan.
    February 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01497.x   open full text
  • Typhoons and Opportunistic Fraud: Claim Patterns of Automobile Theft Insurance in Taiwan.
    Tsung‐I Pao, Larry Y. Tzeng, Kili C. Wang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 14, 2013
    We present evidence to support the existence of opportunistic fraud in the automobile theft insurance market in Taiwan. After encountering a typhoon hit, the insured who purchase automobile theft insurance but do not purchase typhoon/flood insurance tend to have a significantly higher probability of filing a total theft claim than other insured. The above relationship exists mainly in places affected by typhoons. Such evidence does not exist in partial theft claim. These claim patterns of automobile theft insurance provide us with strong evidence that supports the existence of opportunistic fraud in the market.
    February 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01498.x   open full text
  • The Impact of Private Equity on a Life Insurer’s Capital Charges Under Solvency II and the Swiss Solvency Test.
    Alexander Braun, Hato Schmeiser, Caroline Siegel.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 14, 2013
    In this article, we conduct an in‐depth analysis of the impact of private equity investments on the capital requirements faced by a representative life insurance company under Solvency II as well as the Swiss Solvency Test. Our discussion begins with an empirical performance measurement of the asset class over the period from 2001 to 2010, suggesting that limited partnership private equity funds may be suited for the purpose of portfolio enhancement. Subsequently, we review the market risk standard approaches set out by both regulatory regimes and outline a potential framework for an internal model. Based on an implementation of these solvency models, it is possible to demonstrate that private equity is overly penalized by the standard approaches. Hence, life insurers aiming to exploit the asset class’s return potential may expect significantly lower capital charges when applying an economically sound internal model. Finally, we show that, from a regulatory capital perspective, it can even be less costly to increase the exposure to private rather than public equity.
    February 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01500.x   open full text
  • Does the Threat of Insurer Liability for “Bad Faith” Affect Insurance Settlements?
    Danial P. Asmat, Sharon Tennyson.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 14, 2013
    Economic reasoning predicts that policyholders in states that treat for insurer bad faith in settling claims as a tort should receive higher payments from insurers because of the greater potential damages insurers face in claims disputed in court. We test this hypothesis using data on automobile insurance claims for accidents occurring during 1972–1997, exploiting differences in states “laws and variation in timing of states” adoption of bad faith rules to identify the effects of tort liability. We find that the presence of tort liability for insurer bad faith increases settlement amounts and reduces the likelihood that a claim is underpaid.
    February 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01499.x   open full text
  • Risk‐Minimizing Reinsurance Protection For Multivariate Risks.
    K. C. Cheung, K. C. J. Sung, S. C. P. Yam.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. February 14, 2013
    In this article, we study the problem of optimal reinsurance policy for multivariate risks whose quantitative analysis in the realm of general law‐invariant convex risk measures, to the best of our knowledge, is still absent in the literature. In reality, it is often difficult to determine the actual dependence structure of these risks. Instead of assuming any particular dependence structure, we propose the minimax optimal reinsurance decision formulation in which the worst case scenario is first identified, then we proceed to establish that the stop‐loss reinsurances are optimal in the sense that they minimize a general law‐invariant convex risk measure of the total retained risk. By using minimax theorem, explicit form of and sufficient condition for ordering the optimal deductibles are also obtained.
    February 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01501.x   open full text
  • Mortality Risk and Its Effect on Shortfall and Risk Management in Life Insurance.
    Nadine Gatzert, Hannah Wesker.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. January 07, 2013
    Mortality risk is a key risk factor for life insurance companies and can have a crucial impact on its risk situation. In general, mortality risk can be divided into different subcategories, among them unsystematic risk, adverse selection, and systematic risk. In addition, basis risk may arise in case of hedging, for example, longevity risk. The aim of this article is to holistically analyze the impact of these different types of mortality risk on the risk situation and the risk management of a life insurer. Toward this end, we extend previous models of adverse selection, empirically calibrate mortality rates, and study the interaction among the mortality risk components in the case of an insurer holding a portfolio of annuities and term life insurance contracts. For risk management, we examine natural hedging and mortality contingent bonds. Our results show that particularly adverse selection and basis risk can have crucial impact not only on the effectiveness of mortality contingent bonds, but also on the insurer's risk level, especially when a portfolio consists of several types of products.
    January 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01496.x   open full text
  • Financial Bounds for Insurance Claims.
    Carole Bernard, Steven Vanduffel.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. December 25, 2012
    In this article, insurance claims are priced using an indifference pricing principle. We first revisit the traditional economic framework and then extend it to incorporate a financial (sub)market as a tool to invest and to (partially) hedge. In this context, we derive lower bounds for claims’ prices, and these bounds correspond to the market prices of some explicitly known financial payoffs. In particular, we show that the discounted expected value is no longer valid as a classical lower bound for insurance prices in general: it has to be corrected by a covariance term that reflects the interaction between the insurance claim and the financial market. Examples that deal with equity‐linked insurance contracts illustrate the article.
    December 25, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01495.x   open full text
  • On the Use of Information in Oligopolistic Insurance Markets.
    Iris Kesternich, Heiner Schumacher.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 08, 2012
    We analyze the use of information in an oligopolistic insurance market with costly market entry. For intermediate values of entry costs, an equilibrium exists that is profit maximizing for incumbents and in which companies do not discriminate between high and low risks. The model therefore provides an explanation for the existence of “unused observables,” that is, information that (1) insurance companies collect or could collect, (2) is correlated with risk, but (3) is not used to set premiums.
    November 08, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01490.x   open full text
  • Pension Wealth Uncertainty.
    Luigi Guiso, Tullio Jappelli, Mario Padula.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 08, 2012
    Using a representative sample of Italian investors, we measure the uncertainty of social security benefits by eliciting for each individual the subjective distribution of the replacement rate as a summary indicator of pension uncertainty. We find that pension uncertainty varies across individuals in a way that is consistent with what one would expect a priori, given different information sets and pension schemes. In particular, individuals who are a long way from retirement, and thus face more career uncertainty, report more subjective pension uncertainty. Since expectations reveal information about people's understanding of pension reforms, our findings suggest that they should also be an important determinant of how people respond to reforms.
    November 08, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01491.x   open full text
  • Optimum Hurricane Futures Hedge in a Warming Environment: A Risk–Return Jump‐Diffusion Approach.
    Carolyn W. Chang, Jack S. K. Chang, Min‐Ming Wen.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. November 08, 2012
    We develop an optimum risk–return hurricane hedge model in a doubly stochastic jump‐diffusion economy. The model's concave risk–return trade‐off dictates that a higher correlation between hurricane power and insurer's loss, a smaller variable hedging cost, and a larger market risk premium result in a less costly but more effective hedge. The resulting hedge ratio comprises of a positive diffusion, a positive jump, and a negative hedging cost component. Numerical results show that hedging hurricane jump risks is most crucial with jump volatility being the dominant factor, and the faster the warming the more pronounced the jump effects.
    November 08, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01492.x   open full text
  • Derivatives Clearing, Default Risk, and Insurance.
    Robert A. Jones, Christophe Pérignon.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 11, 2012
    Using daily data on margins and variation margins for all clearing members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, we analyze the clearing house exposure to the risk of default by clearing members. We find that the major source of default risk for a clearing member is proprietary trading rather than trading by customers. Additionally, we show that extreme losses suffered by important clearing firms tend to cluster, which raises systemic risk concerns. Finally, we discuss how private insurance could be used to cover the loss from defaults by clearing members.
    September 11, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01489.x   open full text
  • Do Insurance Companies Possess an Informational Monopoly? Empirical Evidence From Auto Insurance.
    Paul Kofman, Gregory P. Nini.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 11, 2012
    This article investigates the impact of policyholder tenure on contractual relationships in nonlife insurance markets. For a sample of auto insurance policies, we find that average risk decreases with policyholder tenure, but the effect is entirely due to the impact of observable information. We reject the hypothesis that the incumbent insurer is privately learning faster about quality of their policyholders. We highlight the importance of a public signal regarding policyholders’ claims experiences and suggest alternative explanations for the unconditional relationships in the data.
    September 11, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01487.x   open full text
  • Pricing Survivor Derivatives With Cohort Mortality Dependence Under the Lee–Carter Framework.
    Chou‐Wen Wang, Sharon S. Yang.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. September 11, 2012
    This article introduces cohort mortality dependence in mortality modeling. We extend the classical Lee–Carter model to incorporate cohort mortality dependence by considering mortality correlations for a cohort of people born in the same year. The pattern of cohort mortality dependence is demonstrated on the basis of U.S. mortality experience. We study the effect of cohort mortality dependence on the pricing of survivor derivatives. For this purpose, a survivor floor is introduced. To understand the difference between a survivor floor and other survivor securities, the valuation formulas for survivor swaps and survivor floors are all derived in detail and the effects of cohort mortality dependence on pricing survivor derivatives are investigated numerically.
    September 11, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01488.x   open full text
  • Corporate Insurance With Safety Loadings: A Note.
    Lutz G. Arnold, Johannes Hartl.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 06, 2012
    In a article in this journal, Schnabel and Roumi (1989) assert that if uninsured debt is risky, a levered firm takes a casualty insurance with a positive safety loading if, and only if, the amount of debt is sufficiently high. This note shows that in marked contrast to this assertion, the correct conclusion from their model is that the firm generally takes insurance for low levels of risky debt, and it depends on the magnitude of the loading whether it also takes insurance for high levels of debt.
    August 06, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01486.x   open full text
  • A Savings Plan With Targeted Contributions.
    Iqbal Owadally, Steven Haberman, Denise Gómez Hernández.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. August 06, 2012
    We consider a simple savings problem where contributions are made to a fund and invested to meet a future liability. The conventional approach is to estimate future investment return and calculate a fixed contribution to be paid regularly by the saver. We propose a flexible plan where contributions are systematically adjusted and targeted. We show by means of stochastic simulations that this plan has a reduced risk of a shortfall and is relatively insensitive to errors in the planner’s estimate of future returns. Sensitivity analyses in terms of parameter values, stochastic return models and investment horizons are also performed.
    August 06, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01485.x   open full text
  • Accuracy of Premium Calculation Models for CAT Bonds—An Empirical Analysis.
    Marcello Galeotti, Marc Gürtler, Christine Winkelvos.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 29, 2012
    CAT bonds are of significant importance in the field of alternative risk transfer. Because the market of CAT bonds is not complete, the application of an appropriate pricing model is of high relevance. We apply different premium calculation models to compare them with regard to their predictive power. Without taking the financial crisis into account, a version of the Wang transformation model and the linear model are the most accurate ones. In contrast, under consideration of the financial crisis, all analyzed models are approximately equivalent. Furthermore, we find that CAT bond specific information does not improve out‐of‐sample results.
    July 29, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01482.x   open full text
  • Deciding Whether to Invest in Mitigation Measures: Evidence From Florida.
    James M. Carson, Kathleen A. McCullough, David M. Pooser.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 29, 2012
    Prior research provides theoretical insight into factors likely to impact the decision to mitigate such as the degree of risk aversion, the cost of market insurance, and the cost of self‐insurance. We provide empirical evidence related to several hypotheses from the self‐insurance literature on the decision to mitigate.
    July 29, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01484.x   open full text
  • Managing Systematic Mortality Risk With Group Self‐Pooling and Annuitization Schemes.
    Chao Qiao, Michael Sherris.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 29, 2012
    Group self‐annuitization (GSA) schemes are designed to share uncertain future mortality experience including systematic improvements. Challenges for designing group pooled schemes include decreasing average payments when mortality improves significantly, decreasing numbers in the pool at older ages, and the impact of dependence from systematic mortality improvements across different ages of members in the pool. This article uses a multiple‐factor stochastic mortality model in a simulation study to show how pooling can be made more effective and to quantify the limitations of these pooling schemes arising from the impact of systematic longevity risk.
    July 29, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01483.x   open full text
  • Predicting Multivariate Insurance Loss Payments Under the Bayesian Copula Framework.
    Yanwei Zhang, Vanja Dukic.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 20, 2012
    The literature of predicting the outstanding liability for insurance companies has undergone rapid and profound changes in the past three decades, most recently focusing on Bayesian stochastic modeling and multivariate insurance loss payments. In this article, we introduce a novel Bayesian multivariate model based on the use of parametric copula to account for dependencies between various lines of insurance claims. We derive a full Bayesian stochastic simulation algorithm that can estimate parameters in this class of models. We provide an extensive discussion of this modeling framework and give examples that deal with a wide range of topics encountered in the multivariate loss prediction settings.
    July 20, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01480.x   open full text
  • Pricing Mortality Securities With Correlated Mortality Indexes.
    Yijia Lin, Sheen Liu, Jifeng Yu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. July 20, 2012
    This article proposes a stochastic model, which captures mortality correlations across countries and common mortality shocks, for analyzing catastrophe mortality contingent claims. To estimate our model, we apply particle filtering, a general technique that has wide applications in non‐Gaussian and multivariate jump‐diffusion models and models with nonanalytic observation equations. In addition, we illustrate how to price mortality securities with normalized multivariate exponential titling based on the estimated mortality correlations and jump parameters. Our results show the significance of modeling mortality correlations and transient jumps in mortality security pricing.
    July 20, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01481.x   open full text
  • Systemic Weather Risk and Crop Insurance: The Case of China.
    Ostap Okhrin, Martin Odening, Wei Xu.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 27, 2012
    This article explores the possibility of spatial diversification of weather risk for 17 agricultural production regions in China. We investigate the relation between the size of the buffer load and the size of the trading area of a hypothetical temperature‐based insurance. The analysis adopts the hierarchical Archimedean copula approach that allows for flexible modeling of the dependence structure of insured losses. We find that the spatial diversification effect depends on the type of the weather index and the strike level of the insurance. Our findings are relevant for the current discussion on the viability of private crop insurance in China.
    June 27, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01476.x   open full text
  • Intermediation and (Mis‐)Matching in Insurance Markets—Who Should Pay the Insurance Broker?
    Uwe Focht, Andreas Richter, Jörg Schiller.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 27, 2012
    This article addresses the role of independent insurance intermediaries in markets where matching is important. We compare fee‐based and commission‐based compensation systems and show that they are payoff equivalent if the intermediary is completely honest. Allowing for strategic behavior, we discuss the impact of remuneration on the quality of advice. The possibility of mismatching gives the intermediary substantial market power, which will not translate into mismatching if consumers are rational. Furthermore, we offer a rationale for the use of contingent commissions and address whether or not the ban of any commission payments is an appropriate market intervention.
    June 27, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01475.x   open full text
  • The Impact of Introducing Insurance Guaranty Schemes on Pricing and Capital Structure.
    Hato Schmeiser, Joël Wagner.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. June 03, 2012
    The introduction of an insurance guaranty scheme can have significant influence on the pricing and capital structures in a competitive market. The aim of this article is to study this effect on competitive equity–premium combinations while considering a framework with policyholders and equity holders where guaranty fund charges are volume‐based, as levied in existing schemes. Several settings with regard to the origin of the fund contributions are assessed and the immediate effects on the incentives of the policyholders and equity holders are analyzed through a one‐period contingent claim approach. One result is that introducing a guaranty scheme in a market with competitive conditions entails a shift of equity capital towards minimum solvency requirements. Hence, adverse incentives may arise with regard to the overall security level of the industry.
    June 03, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01474.x   open full text
  • Pension Portfolio Choice and Peer Envy.
    Jacqueline Volkman Wise.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 28, 2012
    I examine the effect of envy on the portfolio allocation of workers in a defined contribution (DC) pension plan. If a worker’s DC plan performs better than his co‐worker’s, he may gloat; on the other hand, if his DC plan performs worse, he may feel envy. I model anticipated envy when workers make portfolio allocations, and find that in equilibrium, workers will mimic their co‐worker’s allocation to eliminate the disutility from envy. This portfolio allocation is riskier than that of a worker who does not exhibit envy.
    May 28, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01471.x   open full text
  • Capital Market Development, Competition, Property Rights, and the Value of Insurer Product‐Line Diversification: A Cross‐Country Analysis.
    Thomas R. Berry‐Stölzle, Robert E. Hoyt, Sabine Wende.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 28, 2012
    In this article, we show that the effect of product diversification on performance is not homogeneous across countries. Diversified insurance companies perform significantly worse than their focused competitors in countries with well‐developed capital markets, high levels of property rights protection, and high levels of competition. In addition, we find that the diversification–performance relationship for insurance companies depends on company size. For large insurers operating in countries with less developed capital markets, diversification significantly increases performance. Our results suggest that the optimal organizational structure may be different for insurers operating in emerging economies than for insurers operating in developed countries.
    May 28, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01470.x   open full text
  • Mortality Portfolio Risk Management.
    Samuel H. Cox, Yijia Lin, Ruilin Tian, Luis F. Zuluaga.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. May 28, 2012
    We provide a new method, the “MV+CVaR approach,” for managing unexpected mortality changes underlying annuities and life insurance. The MV+CVaR approach optimizes the mean–variance trade‐off of an insurer’s mortality portfolio, subject to constraints on downside risk. We apply the method of moments and the maximum entropy method to analyze the efficiency of MV+CVaR mortality portfolios relative to traditional Markowitz mean–variance portfolios. Our numerical examples illustrate the superiority of the MV+CVaR approach in mortality risk management and shed new light on natural hedging effects of annuities and life insurance.
    May 28, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01469.x   open full text
  • Pension Benefit Security: A Comparison of Solvency Requirements, a Pension Guarantee Fund, and Sponsor Support.
    Dirk Broeders, An Chen.
    Journal of Risk & Insurance. April 26, 2012
    Developed countries apply different security mechanisms in regulation to protect pension benefits: solvency requirements, a pension guarantee fund (PGF), and sponsor support. We compare these mechanisms for a generalized form of hybrid pension schemes. We calculate the expected log return for the beneficiaries, the shortfall probability, that is, the likelihood of the pension payment falling below the promised level and the expected loss given shortfall. Comparing solvency requirements to a pension guarantee system or sponsor support involves trading off risk and return. Additional spending on default insurance reduces the shortfall probability and the expected loss given shortfall but also lowers the probability of high positive returns as are feasible under solvency requirements.
    April 26, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2012.01465.x   open full text