Ch 15: Risk 3 Flashcards
1
Q
Summary Card
A
- Insurance company aims
- Overall risk considerations
- Credit failure
2
Q
State the overall aims of a life insurance company (2)
A
Maximise (or optimise with an acceptable level of risk):
- Profits, either for shareholders or with-profits policyholders
- Return on available capital, for capital providers
Usually these are complementary objectives ie. they work together.
3
Q
Comment on aggregation and concentration of risks that an insurer is exposed to (2)
A
- It’s important to understand risks individually
- But the financial impact on the insurer will also depend on
- how these risks emerge in future, and
- how they relate to each other
4
Q
How might a company go about asessing its overall risk, allowing for aggregation/accumulation of risks? (5)
A
- Carry out financial projection with the greatest insight being provided if stochastic methods…
- …incorporating probability distributions of the key risks, are adopted.
- This will allow for correlation between the parameters.
- Running the projection model many times to test sensitivities and different scenarios ..
- …will produce results that enable the insurer to assess the inherent risk in the business.
5
Q
State 3 considerations in assessing the overall level of insurer risk.
A
- Capital and other resources available to insurer
- More capital => greater emphasis on return on capital
- Company may be willing to take on risks with higher severity of loss if these risks could result in greater return
- Cost of failing to meet public interest need for compnay to avoid insolvency
- Cost of failing to meet requirements of any other applicable legislation
6
Q
Credit rating
- What do we mean by an insurer’s credit rating? (1)
- Why is downgrading of credit rating a risk to the insurer? (4)
A
- An insurer’s credit rating is an external, objective measure/assessment of the insurer’s risk profile…hence its aggregation of risks
Life office will want to ensure it arranges its business practices/overall risk profile to minimyse chances of downgrade
- Downgrading of company’s credit rating is a risk because it would lead to:
- adverse publicity
- greater difficulty + cost of raising additional capital in market
…and as a consquence
- profitable activities available to do may be constrained
- policyholders may be less likely to maintain/purchase policies=> less business