Feldblum: Pricing Insurance Policies: IRR Model Flashcards
- early procedures to determine premium used fixed profit margins
- several factors encouraged alternative pricing models to be proposed
- lack of theoretical justification of fixed margin
- high interest rates (implying the fixed margins may be too low)
- increased competitiveness of insurance industry (insurers may therefore have periods of reduces profit margins)
- one example of these new models is the Internal Rate of Return insurance pricing model
there are 2 points of view in which to look at insurance transactions
Financial market (shareholders) =expected return is influenced by risk to sharehlolders; IRR model looks at this market
Product market (policyholders) =premium is affected by supply/demand of insurance
2 views are interrelated
Financial Market Product Market
Higher cost to obtain capital eg loans -> Lower supply of insurance
Higher returns achievable by investors -> Higher supply of insurance
Product Market Financial Market
Higher demand for insurance -> Better return for investors
Inadequate rates -> Resources pulled from industry
these relationships are strong
for the industry but are weak for individual firms
-higher returns achievable in financial market will increase supply of insurance but not all firms will be able to increase the supply by the same degree if at all
IRR models focus
cash flows in financial market
-product market is only accounted for through its impact on transactions between company and shareholders via interrelationships
companies in various industries can use IRR analysis to help determine whether or not
to take a certain project
IRR analysis compares IRR to
opportunity cost of capital, OCOC
Projects are accepted as long as IRR > OCOC
Internal rate of return
rate which sets NPV of cashflows to 0
Opportunity cost of capital
investment return that providers of capital could earn from an alternate investment (return they are sacrificing by investing in given project)
Projects are accepted as long as
IRR > OCOC
calculate difference in cashflows between 2 different projects, calculate IRR (want to focus on incremental cashflows because if you only base IRR off of cashflows from project 2, you ignore change in cashflows from losing project 1), compare IRR to OCOC
cashflow patterns for insurers differ from most companies
- insurers collect money at inception = inflow
- pay it out during policy period = outflow
- most industries have the opposite pattern
cashflow pattern for equity contributors to insurers is opposite of cashflow pattern for insurers
- at start of policy, investors need to provide money (surplus) which supports insurer’s policies; this money = outflow
- as policies expire and losses are paid, this surplus can be returns to investors; this return of surplus = inflow
IRR model takes view point of
equity contributors
to determine IRR, model needs to make assumptions about
Amount of surplus requirements
Timing of surplus commitments
Timing of surplus release
-1st assumption is difficult to determine because there is not a fixed relationship between premium & surplus
companies can not derive the exact amount of surplus needed by
basing it off premiums
once surplus requirement is determined
it is allocated to LOB in order to determine IRR by line
-this allocation is often in proportion to reserves and/or premiums
this allocation using reserves is going to result
in more surplus being allocated to longer tail lines
All being else equal, IRR reduces as amount of
surplus contributed increases
if surplus is assumed to be committed once policy is written and no longer needed when it expires
short tail policy will have same commitment/ release timing as long tail since there is no impact from reserves
if surplus is committed when UEPR is established and declines as losses are paid
long tail lines will retain the surplus for longer period than short tail line; at any given point in time, long tail lines should have more surplus
higher surplus results in lower IRR
note we should also account for average duration between the loss occurrence and claim payment
expense projection is often
& reasons
less accurate than premium and loss projection for several reasons
- data: companies often do not monitor expense payment patterns as it is not required to populate Schedule P
- expense levels vary widely by company
- risk size: unlike losses, not all expenses are proportional to premium
- policy year: several expenses are higher in 1st policy year than future yrs
when calculating equityflows, what you need to calculate/populate
premium
loss paid
expenses
reserves (loss and or UEPR)
investment income
required surplus
contribution by equityholder
total assets pre distribution
distibution to equityholder
total assets post distribution
Contribution by Equityholders includes
$$ to cover excess of loss reserve over premium
Contribution to equityholder @t=0: reserves + surplus – (premium – expense)
calculating tax
tax on UW income and investment income
UW income is (prem-expenses)@t=i-1 - (paid loss+reserves)@t=i
Investment income is (reserves+surplus)@t=i-1