Reserving Flashcards
3 Importance of Accurately Estimating Unpaid Claims
- Internal management: The estimates are used to make business decisions and underwriting. Inaccurately high estimates can lead to raising rates, tightening underwriting guidelines, exiting a business, or purchasing additional reinsurance.
- Investors: The estimates impact the profitability of the insurer. Inaccurately high estimates would lower the profit, making it appear like a worse investment.
- Regulators: The estimates are used to monitor the solvency of the insurer. Inaccurately high estimates resulting in a low profit might cause a regulator to restrict the insurer’s ability to write new business.
5 Components of Unpaid Claims (also known as the Total Claims Reserve)
- Case reserves
- Provision for development on known claims (IBNER Reserve)
- Reopened claims reserve (IBNER Reserve)
- Provision for claims incurred but not reported (pure IBNR, IBNR Reserve)
- Provision for claims in transit (Incurred and reported but not recorded, IBNR Reserve)
Chain Ladder assumptions
- Development of future claims will be similar to prior periods
- Claims observed for an immature period tell something about claims yet to be observed
5 Diagnostic Triangles and what they tell
- Closed claim counts divided by reported claim counts: speedup/slowdown in closing claims
- Closed without pay claim counts divided by closed claim counts: higher/lower percentage of claims are being closed without pay
- Average paid on closed claims: severity trends, speedup/slowdown in closing small claims relative to large claims
- Average case reserves: severity trends, speedup/slowdown in closing, changes in case adequacy
- Paid losses divided by reported losses: speedup/slowdown in closing claims and changes in case adequacy
Chain Ladder - Impact for change in settlement rates, change in case adequacy, changes in LR/Freq/Sev, Exposure Growth, change in product mix
- Change in settlement rates: reported would be unaffected, paid would under/overestimate
- Change in case adequacy: reported would be affected, paid would be unaffected
- LR/Freq/Sev: Unaffected for both reported and paid
- Exposure Growth: Unaffected for both assuming there is no change to the average accident date
- Change in product mix: Affected for both
Expected Claims Method Ultimate formula
Ultimate = Expected Claim Ratio * EP Ultimate = Expected Pure Premium * Earned Exposures
Expected Claims Method Assumptions
- Ultimate claims can be better estimated based on an a priori estimate than using the experience observed.
- Reasonable expected claim ratio can be obtained.
Expected Claims Method - Impact for change in settlement rates, change in case adequacy, changes in LR/Freq/Sev, Exposure Growth, change in product mix
- Change in settlement rates: unaffected assuming ECR is not impacted
- Change in case adequacy: unaffected assuming ECR is not impacted
- LR/Freq/Sev: Inaccurate
- Exposure Growth: Unaffected on its own
- Change in product mix: Affected if the business that is changing has a different ECR
BF Ultimate Formula
BF Ultimate = Actual Reported + EP * ECR * % Unreported
Benktander Ultimate Formula
Benktander Ultimate = Actual Reported + BF Ultimate * % Unreported
Benktander gives more weight to development technique.
BF Method Assumptions
- Unreported or unpaid claims will develop based on expected claims.
- A reasonable expected claim ratio can be obtained.
BF Method - Impact for change in settlement rates, change in case adequacy, changes in LR/Freq/Sev, Exposure Growth, change in product mix
- Change in settlement rates: estimates still accurate for reported, paid would be inaccurate
- Change in case adequacy: paid will be accurate, reported will not be accurate
- LR/Freq/Sev: Not fully accurate
- Exposure Growth: unaffected on its own assuming average accident date is the same
- Change in product mix: affected if new business have different development pattern or ECR
Cape Cod Ultimate Formula
CC Ultimate = Actual Reported + OLEP * ECR * % Unreported
CC ECR = sum(Reported claims) / sum(OLEP * % Reported)
“Used up premium” formula
sum(OLEP * %Reported)
CC Method Assumptions
- Unreported claims will develop based on expected claims, where expected claims are always derived using reported claims and earned premium.
- Claims reported and paid to date do provide some information about IBNR.
Cape Cod ECR by AY trending backwards
year prior ECR = current year ECR * (premium trend factor / loss trend factor)
CC Method - Impact for change in settlement rates, change in case adequacy, changes in LR/Freq/Sev, Exposure Growth, change in product mix
- Change in settlement rates: still accurate for reported CC
- Change in case adequacy: reported will be inaccurate, error will be more than BF but not as much as development
- LR/Freq/Sev: more accurate than BF
- Exposure Growth: unaffected on its own assuming average accident date is the same
- Change in product mix: affected if new business have different development pattern or ECR
3 Different Approaches for Frequency - Severity Technique
- Using the development technique on claim count and severities separately
- Incorporating exposures and inflation to estimate highly leveraged years
- Disposal rate technique
Frequency Severity Technique assumptions
- Claim counts and severities will continue to develop in future periods as they have in past periods.
- Consistent definition of claim counts throughout the experience period
- The mix of types of claims is relatively homogenous.
- (Disposal technique only) There are no significant partial payments.