This is an analysis of the increasing convergence of banking and insurance in the retail area, a trend often referred to as bancassurance. In the first part of the book, industry- and firm-level characteristics which contribute to the increasing level of cross-industry penetration in the banking and insurance sector are analyzed. The second part of the book provides an account of banks' entry strategies into insurance. It focuses on identifying the key factors which determine whether or not entry will be successful. The book includes case studies of particular banks. provides an account of banks' entry strategies into insurance.

A comprehensive guide designed to help consumers understand the American health insurance system so that they can obtain the benefits to which they are entitled. Epstein explains the ins and outs of both new and traditional health insurance plans, including traditional individual and group policies, HMOs and other types of managed care plans, self-funded plans, Medicare, Medicare HMOs, Medigap, long-term care, COBRA, CHAMPUS, and Medical Savings Accounts.

Written by a nationally syndicated columnist, this useful volume also deals with special health insurance issues related to children, adults with special needs, and individuals who may need long-term care. In addition, Epstein provides valuable information for individuals who are in the process of changing jobs or making changes in their marital or family status, choosing a health insurance plan, or arranging long-term care--including placement in a nursing home or an assisted-living facility--for an aging parent. The book has a practical focus with a variety of tables and worksheets to help consumers establish a system for preventing health insurance problems, and for dealing with any health insurance problems that may arise. It also contains answers to common questions about health insurance, and provides a list of organizations that offer detailed information and advice in regard to specific health insurance problems.

This volume features a selection of contributions presented at the 2019 Wroclaw Conference in Finance, covering a wide range of topics in finance and financial economics, e.g. financial markets; monetary policy; corporate, personal and public finance; and risk management and insurance. Reflecting the diversity and richness of research in the field, the papers discuss both fundamental and applied finance, and offer a detailed analysis of current financial-market problems, including specifics of the Polish and Central European markets. They also examine the results of advanced financial modeling. Accordingly, the proceedings offer a valuable resource for researchers at universities and policy institutions, as well as graduate students and practitioners in economics and finance at both private and government organizations.

Mortality improvements, uncertainty in future mortality trends and the relevant impact on life annuities and pension plans constitute important topics in the field of actuarial mathematics and life insurance techniques. In particular, actuarial calculations concerning pensions, life annuities and other living benefits (provided, for example, by long-term care insurance products and whole life sickness covers) are based on survival probabilities which necessarily extend over a long time horizon. In order to avoid underestimation of the related liabilities, the insurance company (or the pension plan) must adopt an appropriate forecast of future mortality.
Great attention is currently being devoted to the management of life annuity portfolios, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view, because of the growing importance of annuity benefits paid by private pension schemes. In particular, the progressive shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension schemes has increased the interest in life annuities with a guaranteed annual amount.
This book provides a comprehensive and detailed description of methods for projecting mortality, and an extensive introduction to some important issues concerning longevity risk in the area of life annuities and pension benefits. It relies on research work carried out by the authors, as well as on a wide teaching experience and in CPD (Continuing Professional Development) initiatives. The following topics are dealt with: life annuities in the framework of post-retirement income strategies; the basic mortality model; recent mortality trends that have been experienced; general features of projection models; discussion of stochastic projection models, with numerical illustrations; measuring and managing longevity risk.

The growth of Islamic finance today is undeniable given its services, product innovation, performance and achievements, with the Islamic insurance market being no exception; it has retained global market recognition in a parallel platform as Islamic finance moves forward. There is much written regarding the Islamic insurance system, but rarely do researchers present the various Islamic insurance products and their structures in one collective place. This book is a timely addition in meeting contemporary market demands by providing a much-needed overview of the Islamic insurance products and their Shari'ah compliant structures. This book would be of interest to academics, researchers, students and professionals who are seeking to understand the products offered.

Disaster risk management is of increasing significance in today's world. Every year, natural disasters cause tens of thousands of deaths and tens of billions of dollars' worth of losses. Northeast Asia holds a high propensity for natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, floods and landslides. Countries in the region have a long history of natural disasters that have devastated populations, cities and their heritage. Restoring livelihoods and rebuilding social and economic infrastructures requires adequate political actions and financial resources, necessitating the implementation of a comprehensive strategy for the management of catastrophe risks. Coping with Disaster: Risk Management in Northeast Asia provides an examination of the disaster risk management approaches and financing practices adopted in China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. The objective of this book is to provide the necessary information on hazards, exposures and vulnerabilities to assist policy development design to increase governmental preparedness for catastrophe risks. It addresses the traditional aspects of disaster risk management, but goes further to focus on the measures of financial protection required to secure post-disaster resources and strengthen budgetary discipline. Written in an accessible and comprehensible manner, the book will appeal to a wide audience, but is of special interest to policy-makers, public officials, insurance managers and students eager to learn more about disaster risk management in one of the most exposed regions in the world.

Originally published in 1939, this book forms the second part of a two-volume series on the mathematics required for the examinations of the Institute of Actuaries, focusing on finite differences, probability and elementary statistics. Miscellaneous examples are included at the end of the text. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in actuarial science and mathematics.

The debate between the proponents of "classical" and "Bayesian" statistica} methods continues unabated. It is not the purpose of the text to resolve those issues but rather to demonstrate that within the realm of actuarial science there are a number of problems that are particularly suited for Bayesian analysis. This has been apparent to actuaries for a long time, but the lack of adequate computing power and appropriate algorithms had led to the use of various approximations. The two greatest advantages to the actuary of the Bayesian approach are that the method is independent of the model and that interval estimates are as easy to obtain as point estimates. The former attribute means that once one learns how to analyze one problem, the solution to similar, but more complex, problems will be no more difficult. The second one takes on added significance as the actuary of today is expected to provide evidence concerning the quality of any estimates. While the examples are all actuarial in nature, the methods discussed are applicable to any structured estimation problem. In particular, statisticians will recognize that the basic credibility problem has the same setting as the random effects model from analysis of variance.

The u.s. government bulks large in the nation's financial markets. The huge volume of government-issued and -sponsored debt affects the pricing and volume ofprivate debt and, consequently, resource allocation between competing alternatives. What is often not fully appreciated is the substantial influence the federal government wields overresource allocation through its provisionofcreditandrisk-bearing services to the private economy. Because peopleand firms generally seekto avoid risk, atsomeprice they are willing to pay another party to assume the risk they would otherwise face. Insurance companies are a class of private-sector firms one commonly thinks of as providing these services. As the federal government has expanded its presence in the U.S. economy during this century, it has increasingly developed programs aimed at bearing risks that the private sector either would not take on at any price, or would take on but atapricethoughtto besogreatthatmostpotentialbeneficiarieswouldnotpurchase the coverage. Today, roughly three-fifths of all nonfederal credit outstanding is 1 assisted by some form of federal program. The federal government provides insurance of many private pension plans through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, subsidizesand implicitly guarantees the liabilitiesofseveral agencies dominating secondary loan markets (for example, the Federal National Mortgage Association, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, and Student Loan Mar ketingAssociation), andeithermakesdirectloansorguaranteesprivatelygenerated loans through a varietyofcreditprograms to farmers, exporters, home purchasers, and others."

This handbook examines the latest techniques and strategies that are used to unlock the risk transfer capacity of global financial and capital markets. Taking the financial crisis and global recession into account, it frames and contextualises non-traditional risk transfer tools created over the last 20 years. Featuring contributions from distinguished academics and professionals from around the world, this book covers in detail issues in securitization, financial risk management and innovation, structured finance and derivatives, life and non-life pure risk management, market and financial reinsurance, CAT risk management, crisis management, natural, environmental and man-made risks, terrorism risk, risk modelling, vulnerability and resilience. This handbook will be of interest to academics, researchers and practitioners in the field of risk transfer.

The research project leading to this book was initiated in the fall of 1979 when the American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI) contacted Dan McGill, chairman of the Wharton School Insurance Department, about conducting a study on risk classification in life insurance. The ACLI was concerned about legislative and judicial activity in this area and its potential effects on the life insurance industry. A meeting was held at the ACLI offices in Washington, D.C., between several members of the ACLI staff and Dan McGill and David Cummins representing the Wharton School insurance department. An agreement was reached that a study would be conducted at Wharton dealing with issues in risk classification. Although the staff of the ACLI suggested directions the study might take, it was agreed that the design and execution of the study would be solely under the control of the researchers. The researchers also retained unrestricted publication rights in the results of the study. This agreement has been honored by the ACLI during the course of the project.

Digital Asset Valuation and Cyber Risk Measurement: Principles of Cybernomics is a book about the future of risk and the future of value. It examines the indispensable role of economic modeling in the future of digitization, thus providing industry professionals with the tools they need to optimize the management of financial risks associated with this megatrend. The book addresses three problem areas: the valuation of digital assets, measurement of risk exposures of digital valuables, and economic modeling for the management of such risks. Employing a pair of novel cyber risk measurement units, bitmort and hekla, the book covers areas of value, risk, control, and return, each of which are viewed from the perspective of entity (e.g., individual, organization, business), portfolio (e.g., industry sector, nation-state), and global ramifications. Establishing adequate, holistic, and statistically robust data points on the entity, portfolio, and global levels for the development of a cybernomics databank is essential for the resilience of our shared digital future. This book also argues existing economic value theories no longer apply to the digital era due to the unique characteristics of digital assets. It introduces six laws of digital theory of value, with the aim to adapt economic value theories to the digital and machine era.

Big Data Analytics in the Insurance Market is an industry-specific guide to creating operational effectiveness, managing risk, improving financials, and retaining customers. This book will be a 'must' for people seeking to broaden their knowledge of big data concepts and their real-world applications, particularly in the field of insurance. The insurance industry is largely dependent on data, and the advent of Big Data and analytics represents a major advance with tremendous potential. Yet clear, practical advice on the business side of analytics is lacking. This book fills the void with concrete information on using Big Data in the context of day-to-day insurance operations and strategy. This book an invaluable resource for any insurance professional from practitioners and policymakers working at insurance companies, to undergraduate and graduate students of economics management, and finance. Providing high quality academic research, ESFIRM provides a platform for authors to explore, analyse and discuss current and new financial models and theories, and engage with innovative research on an international scale.

Malta is the only country in the European Union, and one of only six countries in the world, that has not had a banking crisis since the 1970s. Despite its lack of raw materials, Malta currently has one of the lowest rates of unemployment and inflation in the EU, as well as a positive GDP. Yet there are only a few studies on the development of the industry that contributes most to its economy, the financial services industry. Drawing upon empirical findings, archival research, and interviews, Zammit, Spiteri, and Grima fill a major gap in the literature by delivering a study of the development of the Maltese insurance industry. The authors collect literature and insights from prominent figureheads in order to outline the history of this major sector of the Maltese economy, tracing its roots back to the earliest inhabitants of the island, through to the expansion of its maritime trade, and working right up to the present with the emergence of more complex and sophisticated insurance services and products. The success of Malta's specific risk-management practices, generally characterized by risk-avoidance and prudence, is shown to have implications beyond Maltese financial policy and regulatory development: it offers concrete guidance from a small-scale "laboratory" for the complex policy and development decisions of larger nations. This study is of interest to students and academics of insurance, risk management, and financial services, and it offers food for thought and guidance to practitioners and policy makers.

The cooperation and contamination among mathematicians, statisticians and econometricians working in actuarial sciences and finance are improving the research on these topics and producing numerous meaningful scientific results. This volume presents new ideas in the form of four- to six-page papers presented at the International Conference MAF2022 - Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference, to which this book is related, was organized in a hybrid form by the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Salerno, with the partnership of the Department of Economics of Ca Foscari University of Venice, and was held from 20 to 22 April 2022 in Salerno (Italy) MAF2022 is the tenth edition of an international biennial series of scientific meetings, started in 2004 on the initiative of the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Salerno. It has established itself internationally with gradual and continuous growth and scientific enrichment. The effectiveness of this idea has been proven by the wide participation in all the editions, which have been held in Salerno (2004, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2022), Venice (2008, 2012 and 2020 online), Paris (2016) and Madrid (2018). This book covers a wide variety of subjects: artificial intelligence and machine learning in finance and insurance, behavioural finance, credit risk methods and models, dynamic optimization in finance, financial data analytics, forecasting dynamics of actuarial and financial phenomena, foreign exchange markets, insurance models, interest rate models, longevity risk, models and methods for financial time series analysis, multivariate techniques for financial markets analysis, pension systems, portfolio selection and management, real-world finance, risk analysis and management, trading systems, and others. This volume is a valuable resource for academics, PhD students, practitioners, professionals and researchers. Moreover, it is also of interest to other readers with quantitative background knowledge.

Five years ago the world lost one of its most prolific insurance scholars, Dr. Robert I. Mehr. His death in 1988 signalled the passing of not only a gifted writer and researcher, but also a pioneering teacher, mentor, and friend. The essays compiled within this volume are intended as an appropriate tribute to this occasionally outrageous individual who touched the lives of so many within the insurance community. Bob Mehr was a teacher who expected and demanded nothing less than perfect scholarship and flawless, efficient writing. Among alumni of the University of lllinois insurance doctoral program, stories still abound of late night and early morning sessions in which students and professor painstakingly debated precise words and phrases for dissertations, journal articles, and textbooks. Bob's respect for language was both immense and contagious, if at times more than a little compulsive. He joked that he could not read letters or novels without pencil in hand for editing. Bob's respect for his doctoral students was equally evident. The confidence he displayed in his students' abilities was sometimes startling, but "competence assumed" often begot "competence in fact." The accomplishments and records amassed by the many who studied with Bob Mehr are impressive and ongoing. On the dedication page in his final textbook, Fundamentals of Insurance, Bob spoke of his affection for those he called his "academic progeny" and wished them happiness as they build their own academic families.

For people interested in risk management, medical activity represents a stimulating field of study and thought. On the one hand, progress in medical knowledge and technology tends to reduce the risks to survival that individuals would face in the absence of appropriate diagnostic or therapeutic instruments. On the other hand, new medical technologies simultaneously create their own specific risks, sometimes simply because their effects are less well-known than those of established ones. In a sense any medical progress simultaneously generates new risks while destroying old ones. Moreover, unlike many financial risks that can be either divided or transferred to others (e.g. through diversification, insurance or social security) the personal aspects of medical risks are by essence indivisible and non-transferable. As a result, they are in a sense more threatening than financial risks for risk averse patients. These two facts explain and justify the growing interest in risk economics for the fields of medical decision making and health economics.

In Risk and Medical Decision Making, part 1 is developed inside the expected utility (E-U) model and analyses how comorbidity risks affect the well-known "test-treatment" thresholds. Part 2 is devoted to a specific non E-U model with the same purpose: how would one define a threshold in this context and how would one value a diagnostic test? In each of these two parts both diagnostic and therapeutic risks are considered.

Challenges destabilize the norm and create distresses and disruptions in, for example, the culture, the technology, regulations, the environmental, etc. that influence the pace of finance and economic activities. This book is a collection of 13 chapters and studies about Insurance and Risk management in response to disruptions caused by social, economic, and environmental challenges to try and stabilize the economy in an effort to ensure sustainability. Insurance and Risk Management for Disruptions in Social, Economic and Environmental Systems brings together studies from scholars, researchers and professionals with different disciplinary backgrounds to highlight discuss and exchange ideas on these challenges, which may seem a danger, but offer prospects for economic and business development. Books in the Emerald Studies In Finance, Insurance, And Risk Management series collect quantitative and qualitative studies in areas relating to finance, insurance, and risk management. Subjects of interest may include banking, accounting, auditing, compliance, sustainability, behaviour, management, and business economics.

This book complements the textbook Investment Valuation and Appraisal - Theory and Practice. It contains exercises and solutions often used at academic courses about investment evaluation around the world. Using the sample solutions for the assignments, the learning progress itself can be checked by students. Thus, this book enables students of business administration to prepare for exams in self-study. In addition, it is ideal for practitioners as an illustrative object for concrete quantitative business problems and their solutions.The book covers tasks in areas such as static investment evaluation methods, dynamic investment evaluation methods, selection of alternatives and investment program planning, optimum useful lifetime and optimum replacement time and investment decisions in uncertainty. The book closes with a mock exam and its solution as is typical at universities. Solutions are shown in an Excel sheet which is available online.

Investment Management for Insurers details all phases of the investment management process for insurers as well as fixed income instruments and derivatives and state-of-the-art analytical tools for valuing securities and measuring risk. Complete coverage includes: a general overview of issues, fixed income products, valuation, measuring and controlling interest rate risk, and equity portfolio management.

The financing of graduate medical education is likely to change significantly in the near future as third party payers are already pressuring hospitals to discontinue paying for graduate medical education through patient care. The Medicare System of Prospective Payment Implications for Medical Education and Practice isolates significant implications of prospective payment systems, and deals with each one in detail. Besides providing a theoretical base, it identifies various alternatives and provides guidelines for dealing with them.

The only student textbook covering this frequently-taught subject Fully updated new edition includes updates in case law and the ongoing impact of the Insurance Act 2015 and a revised chapter on smart contracts to include discussion of Blockchain First two editions extremely well received and adopted by the market

The only student textbook covering this frequently-taught subject Fully updated new edition includes updates in case law and the ongoing impact of the Insurance Act 2015 and a revised chapter on smart contracts to include discussion of Blockchain First two editions extremely well received and adopted by the market

This book illustrates the EU-wide Solvency II framework for the insurance industry, which was implemented on January 1, 2016, after a long project phase. Analogous to the system for banks, it is based on three pillars and the authors analyze the complete framework pillar by pillar with a consistent data model for a non-life insurer, which was developed by the Research Group Financial & Actuarial Risk Management (FaRis) at the Institute for Insurance Studies of the TH Koeln - University of Applied Sciences. The book leverages the long-standing and close cooperation between the University of Limerick (Ireland) and the Institute for Insurance Studies at TH Koeln - University of Applied Sciences (Germany).