Diversification, performance and optimal business mix of insurance portfolios

Abstract

For multi-line insurance companies, allocating the risk capital to each line is a widely-accepted risk management exercise. In this article we consider several applications of the Euler capital allocation. First, we propose visual tools to present the diversification and the line-wise performance for a given loss portfolio so that the risk managers can understand the interactions among the lines. Secondly, on theoretical side, we prove that the Euler allocation is the directional derivative of the marginal or incremental allocation method, an alternative capital allocation rule in the literature. Lastly, we establish the equivalence between the mean-shortfall optimization and the RORAC optimization when the risk adjusted capital is the expected shortfall, and show how to construct the optimal insurance business mix that maximizes the portfolio RORAC. An actual loss sample of an insurance portfolio is used for numerical illustrations