Risk management for property casualty insurance companies

This thesis addresses the need to reduce inefficiencies in management of insurance company risk capital. The laxity in managing the cost of capital is a result of dysfunctional property/casualty risk classification and capital accumulation practices in the insurance industry. We reclassify risk based on both peril and financial functional features, in order to capture all the facets of risk affecting a firm and ultimately to achieve optimal capital allocation. With the purpose of reducing inefficiencies in mind, we explore and isolate the impact of regulation on insurance company profitability. We use barrier option pricing models to mimic the impact of solvency requirements on firm-wide risk. This methodology of measuring risk is better than plain vanilla option pricing models, in that, through the option to an early default, we are able to capture the economic significance of financial distress, and allocate firm-wide risk capital. The firm-wide risk is incidentally used to empirically test the impact of risk on the cost of carry, the quality of operational profitability and forward asset commitment per unit of liabilities. Our empirical test confirms a strong relationship between firm-level risk, and the cost of carry, return on policyholders' surplus and the cost of capital per contract underwritten. The results are better than previous results obtained using plain vanilla option-pricing models and reveal the importance of incorporating solvency requirements in defining the economic significance of insolvency. The results also points to the importance of advised risk classification procedures to the whole process of integrated risk measurement and financing, which we explore in this study

Understanding, Modeling and Managing Longevity Risk: Key Issues and Main Challenges

This article investigates the latest developments in longevity risk modelling, and explores the key risk management challenges for both the financial and insurance industries. The article discusses key definitions that are crucial for the enhancement of the way longevity risk is understood; providing a global view of the practical issues for longevity-linked insurance and pension products that have evolved concurrently with the steady increase in life expectancy since 1960s. In addition, the article frames the recent and forthcoming developments that are expected to action industry-wide changes as more effective regulation, designed to better assess and efficiently manage inherited risks, is adopted. Simultaneously, the evolution of longevity is intensifying the need for capital markets to be used to manage and transfer the risk through what are known as Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS). Thus, the article will examine the emerging scenarios, and will finally highlight some important potential developments for longevity risk management from a financial perspective with reference to the most relevant modelling and pricing practices in the banking industry.Longevity Risk ; securitization ; risk transfer ; incomplete market ; life insurance ; stochastic mortality ; pensions ; long term interest rate ; regulation ; population dynamics

Risk measurement and management of insurance companies

This thesis reviews some fundamental risk measurement and management concepts that insurance companies will face in the following years. The first chapter evaluates the theoretical and practical framework of the different approaches with respect to the determination of regulatory capital held by insurance companies. A critical assessment and substantial interpretation of these approaches is performed. Moreover, a number of new approaches is brought forward in order to add a more thorough and clear way of evaluating the level of the regulatory capital. Then, we provide evidence of the presence of the underwriting cycle in the UK. The underwriting cycle has been identified in a number of OECD and non-OECD countries and highlights the different stages and maturity of the insurance market. A number of reasons for the presence of this cycle is presented and evaluated in contrast with the reasons behind the underwriting cycle in other countries. The level of profitability of the insurance companies is used to determine the presence of the cycle. In the third chapter, profitability and cost of capital are connected with the credit rating assigned by credit agencies to insurance companies. The credit risk that insurance companies face is explained by the use of financial ratios that explicitly explain the particular credit rating. The credit rating is implicitly connected with the cost of capital, which in turn is explained by the level of the credit spread between the Treasury Yield and European bonds. Finally, securitisation as an alternative method of minimizing credit and market risk is analyzed. Different structures of securitised deals are presented and evaluated. The benefits of securitisation are presented in a systematic way

Applications of robust optimal control to decision making in the presence of uncertainty

This thesis is concerned with robustness of decision making in financial economics. Feedback control models developed in engineering are applied to three separate though linked problems in order to examine the role and impact of robustness in the creation and application of decision rules. Three problems are examined using robust optimal control techniques to evaluate the impact of robustness and stability in financial economic models. The first problem examines the use of linear models of robust optimal control in the pricing of castastrophe based derivatives and finds its relative performance to be superior to the popular jump diffusion and stochastic volatility models in the pricing of these emerging instruments. The novelty of the approach arises from the examination of the impact of robustness and stability of the pricing solution. The second problem involves robustness and stability of hedging. An alternative method of creating hedging rules is developed. The method is based on robust control Lyapunov functions that are simple, robust and stable in operation, yet in practice are not so conservative that they eliminate all trading gains. The third problem involves the development of robust control policies for managing risk, using non-linear robust optimal control techniques to provide clear evidence of superior performance of robust models when compared with existing VAR and EVT approaches to risk management. The novelty in the approach arises from the development of a simple and powerful risk management metric

Insurance regulation for development: parametrics and agriculture

Provision of agricultural insurance is highly variable, with a deficit for the global rural poor faced with acute climate risk. Regulatory support is an enabler of widened supply of insurance, which can be pro-poor and climate adaptive in manner. The aims of this research are to: (i) assess organic evolution of agricultural parametric insurance provision; (ii) evaluate regulation of agricultural parametric insurance in Tanzania and related contexts; and (iii) construct an idealised regulatory framework to facilitate insurance as a climate risk management tool. This research draws on the launch of the WINnERS pilot programme in Tanzania, supported by literature analysis and interviews with critical market participants. It found parametric insurance regulation to be preclusive in all jurisdictions. Lack of legal certainty for multiple, foundational elements of already implemented parametric schemes prevents growth and deters market appetite. Though there is no suitable framework, there are useful elements indicative of supportive regulation. These are spatially disparate, preventing an individual insurance jurisdiction from building the necessary capacity, supply and demand for viable markets. A framework is presented which is practical and implementable, addressing the issues of regulatory comprehensiveness and coherence. It is intended to facilitate the identification of gaps and barriers as insurance regulators seek to develop the protective and promotive elements of parametric insurance as a public policy imperative.Open Acces

Realising catastrophe: the financial ontology of the Anthropocene

This dissertation investigates how the financial risk management practice of catastrophe modelling is redefining the ontology of natural catastrophe. Drawing from and developing the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’, referring to co-production of the ‘social’ and the ‘natural’ on a planetary scale, the dissertation argues that simulation-based risk modelling of future ‘natural’ disasters in insurance and reinsurance markets is not just affecting how catastrophe is interpreted by economic agents, economised and financialised, but is also driving changes in the realisation of actual disasters. The thesis calls this recursive dynamic the ‘financial ontology of Anthropocene catastrophe’. In developing the argument, the thesis extends actor-network theoretical perspectives on the Anthropocene to take fuller account of market devices, performativity and calculative practices in finance. Documentary research, 62 interviews and 14 participant observation episodes serve to reconstruct current practices of catastrophe modelling and its history since it emerged as a boutique risk management practice in the 1980s. Ultimately, it has become embedded in the calculative practices of some of the largest insurance and financial companies in the world and underpinning a specialist disaster securities market. Adding conceptual depth and fine-grained empirical detail to literature on the financialisation-Anthropocene nexus, the dissertation asks us to reconsider the boundaries between economic representations of the world and the meaning and occurrence of catastrophes in market societies. In an age of anthropogenic climate change, the thesis also serves as an analytical and historical underpinning of epistemic practices in climate finance in the emerging, even more encompassing, ‘financial ontology of the Anthropocene’