Innovations in Quantitative Risk Management


Book Description

Quantitative models are omnipresent –but often controversially discussed– in todays risk management practice. New regulations, innovative financial products, and advances in valuation techniques provide a continuous flow of challenging problems for financial engineers and risk managers alike. Designing a sound stochastic model requires finding a careful balance between parsimonious model assumptions, mathematical viability, and interpretability of the output. Moreover, data requirements and the end-user training are to be considered as well. The KPMG Center of Excellence in Risk Management conference Risk Management Reloaded and this proceedings volume contribute to bridging the gap between academia –providing methodological advances– and practice –having a firm understanding of the economic conditions in which a given model is used. Discussed fields of application range from asset management, credit risk, and energy to risk management issues in insurance. Methodologically, dependence modeling, multiple-curve interest rate-models, and model risk are addressed. Finally, regulatory developments and possible limits of mathematical modeling are discussed.




Fair Valuation of Life Insurance Liabilities


Book Description

The paper analyzes one of the most common life insurance products -- the so-called participating (or with profits) policy. This type of contract stands in contrast to unit-linked (UL) products in that interest is credited to the policy periodically according to some mechanism which smoothes past returns on the life insurance company's (LIC) assets. As is the case for UL products, the participating policies are typically equipped with an interest rate guarantee and possibly also an option to surrender (sell-back) the policy to the LIC before maturity. The paper shows that the typical participating policy can be decomposed into a risk free bond element, a bonus option, and a surrender option. A dynamic model is constructed in which these elements can be valued separately using contingent claims analysis. The impact of various bonus policies and various levels of the guaranteed interest rate is analyzed numerically. We find that values of participating policies are highly sensitive to the bonus policy, that surrender options can be quite valuable, and that LIC solvency can be quickly jeopardized if earning opportunities deteriorate in a situation where bonus reserves are low and promised returns are high.




Life Annuity Products and Their Guarantees


Book Description

This publication helps policy makers to better understand annuity products and the guarantees they provide in order to optimise the role that these products can play in financing retirement. Product design is a crucial factor in the potential role of annuity products within the pension system, along with the cost and demand for these products, and the resulting risks that are borne by the annuity providers. Increasingly complex products, however, pose additional challenges concerning consumer protection. Consumers need to be aware of their options and have access to unbiased and comprehensible advice and information about these products.




Valuation and Risk Assessment of Participating Life Insurance in the Presence of Credit Risk


Book Description

In participating life insurance, management decisions regarding the asset composition can substantially impact the value of a policy from the policyholders' perspective as well as the insurer's risk situation. Due to the long-term guarantees often embedded in these contracts, life insurers typically invest a considerable portion of their capital in long-term assets such as corporate and government bonds. Besides interest rate risk, the value of these bond investments is thus particularly influenced by credit (spread) risk. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the impact of market risk associated with the asset composition on fair valuation and risk assessment with focus on credit risk and its interaction with equity risk and interest rate risk. Our analysis emphasizes the strong tradeoff between higher coupon payments of lower grade bond portfolios and the increased credit risk as well as the interaction between credit risk, interest rate risk, and equity risk arising from the stock investments.




The Fair Value of Insurance Liabilities


Book Description

This book explores theoretical and practical implications of reflecting the fair value of liabilities for insurance companies. In addition, the contributions discuss the disclosure of these values to the financial and regulatory communities and auditing firms which are actually calculating this illusive but important variable. It combines contributions by distinguished practitioners from the insurance, accounting and finance fields, with those of prominent academics. One of the central themes of the collection is that adequate disclosure of the true economic value of insurance company liabilities is both possible and desirable. Wherever possible, the insurance valuation process is wedded with modern financial theory. For example, the use of option pricing theory is applied to insurance companies, where the true value of the firm's liabilities is a critical variable. Methods such as cash flow, earned profit and indirect discount are explored.




Investment Guarantees


Book Description

A comprehensive guide to investment guarantees in equity-linked life insurance Due to the convergence of financial and insurance markets, new forms of investment guarantees are emerging which require financial service professionals to become savvier in modeling and risk management. With chapters that discuss stock return models, dynamic hedging, risk measures, Markov Chain Monte Carlo estimation, and much more, this one-stop reference contains the valuable insights and proven techniques that will allow readers to better understand the theory and practice of investment guarantees and equity-linked insurance policies. Mary Hardy, PhD (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries, where she is a frequent speaker. Her research covers topics in life insurance solvency and risk management, with particular emphasis on equity-linked insurance. Hardy is an Associate Editor of the North American Actuarial Journal and the ASTIN Bulletin and is a Deputy Editor of the British Actuarial Journal.







Interest Rate Models - Theory and Practice


Book Description

The 2nd edition of this successful book has several new features. The calibration discussion of the basic LIBOR market model has been enriched considerably, with an analysis of the impact of the swaptions interpolation technique and of the exogenous instantaneous correlation on the calibration outputs. A discussion of historical estimation of the instantaneous correlation matrix and of rank reduction has been added, and a LIBOR-model consistent swaption-volatility interpolation technique has been introduced. The old sections devoted to the smile issue in the LIBOR market model have been enlarged into a new chapter. New sections on local-volatility dynamics, and on stochastic volatility models have been added, with a thorough treatment of the recently developed uncertain-volatility approach. Examples of calibrations to real market data are now considered. The fast-growing interest for hybrid products has led to a new chapter. A special focus here is devoted to the pricing of inflation-linked derivatives. The three final new chapters of this second edition are devoted to credit. Since Credit Derivatives are increasingly fundamental, and since in the reduced-form modeling framework much of the technique involved is analogous to interest-rate modeling, Credit Derivatives -- mostly Credit Default Swaps (CDS), CDS Options and Constant Maturity CDS - are discussed, building on the basic short rate-models and market models introduced earlier for the default-free market. Counterparty risk in interest rate payoff valuation is also considered, motivated by the recent Basel II framework developments.




Insurance and Issues in Financial Soundness


Book Description

This paper explores insurance as a source of financial system vulnerability. It provides a brief overview of the insurance industry and reviews the risks it faces, as well as several recent failures of insurance companies that had systemic implications. Assimilation of banking-type activities by life insurers appears to be the key systemic vulnerability. Building on this experience and the experience gained under the FSAP, the paper proposes key indicators that should be compiled and used for surveillance of financial soundness of insurance companies and the insurance sector as a whole.