Search results for "General insurance"

Health insurance: medical treatment vs. disability payment

2010

We present arguments for treating health insurance and disability insurance in an integrated manner in economic analysis, based on a model where each individual's utility depends on both consumption and health and her income depends on her earning ability. When purchasing insurance, she may choose a contract that offers less than full medical treatment. We find that high-ability individuals demand full recovery and equalize utility across states, while low-ability individuals demand partial treatment and cash compensation and suffer a loss in utility if ill. Our results carry over to the case where health states are not observable. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was acc…

The welfare cost of unpriced heterogeneity in insurance markets

2016

We consider the welfare loss of unpriced heterogeneity in insurance markets, which results when private information or regulatory constraints prevent insurance companies to set premiums reflecting expected costs. We propose a methodology which uses survey data to measure this welfare loss. After identifying some “types” which determine expected risk and insurance demand, we derive the key factors defining the demand and cost functions in each market induced by these unobservable types. These are used to quantify the efficiency costs of unpriced heterogeneity. We apply our methods to the US Long-Term Care and Medigap insurance markets, where we find that unpriced heterogeneity causes substan…

Integrating the Compliance Function into the Legal Department

2015

This chapter addresses a governance issue: whether it is permissible under the insurance supervisory regime of Solvency II for an insurance undertaking to merge its compliance function with its legal department. The Solvency II provisions in fact do not address the legal department of an insurance undertaking. But the tasks and powers of a legal department are in part the same as those of the compliance function under art. 46, para. 1 of the Solvency II Directive. The conclusion is thus: General insurance supervisory regime principles such as functional segregation and functional independence do not prohibit such a merger. Indeed, such a merger would seem to be advisable in many instances i…

Peter Zweifel's Bonus Options in Health Insurance

1993

Asset and Liability Management for Insurance Products with Minimum Guarantees: The UK Case

2006

Abstract Modern insurance products are becoming increasingly complex, offering various guarantees, surrender options and bonus provisions. A case in point are the with-profits insurance policies offered by UK insurers. While these policies have been offered in some form for centuries, in recent years their structure and management have become substantially more involved. The products are particularly complicated due to the wide discretion they afford insurers in determining the bonuses policyholders receive. In this paper, we study the problem of an insurance firm attempting to structure the portfolio underlying its with-profits fund. The resulting optimization problem, a non-linear program…

Insurance league: Italy vs. U.K

2003

Insurers are competing by adopting product innovations that provide the insured with integrated coverage for actuarial and financial risks. This article compares the contract structures of blended life policies between the insurance markets in Italy and the United Kingdom within the context of asset-liability management and welfare analysis. © Emerald Backfiles 2007.

The Fair Premium of an Equity—Linked Life and Pension Insurance

2002

An equity linked life and pension insurance contract consists of an nonlinear combination of a life and pension insurance with an investment strategy. In addition to the guaranteed payments the insured receives a bonus depending on the value of an investment strategy. The additional payment is similar to an Asian type option. Since the insurance contract combines mortality and financial risks in a nonlinear way, the value or premium of the contract must reflect these uncertainties. Within this context a premium sequence is called fair if the accumulated expected discounted premium is equal to the accumulated expected discounted payments of the contract. This paper shows the existence of a f…