This book presents a consistent and complete framework for studying the risk management of a pension fund. It gives the reader the opportunity to understand, replicate and widen the analysis. To this aim, the book provides all the tools for computing the optimal asset allocation in a dynamic framework where the financial horizon is stochastic (longevity risk) and the investor's wealth is not self-financed. This tutorial enables the reader to replicate all the results presented. The R codes are provided alongside the presentation of the theoretical framework. The book explains and discusses the problem of hedging longevity risk even in an incomplete market, though strong theoretical results about an incomplete framework are still lacking and the problem is still being discussed in most recent literature.

This Volume of the AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation focuses on transparency as the guiding principle of modern insurance law. It consists of chapters written by leaders in the respective field, who address transparency in a range of civil and common law jurisdictions, along with overview chapters. Each chapter reviews the transparency principles applicable in the jurisdiction discussed. Whether expressly or impliedly, all jurisdictions recognize a duty on the part of the insured to make a fair presentation of the risk when submitting a proposal for cover to the insurers, although there is little consensus on the scope of that duty. Disputed matters in this regard include: whether it is satisfied by honest answers to express questions, or whether there is a spontaneous duty of disclosure; whether facts relating to the insured's character, as opposed to the nature of the risk itself, are to be presented to the insurers; the role of insurance intermediaries in the placement process; and the remedy for breach of duty. Transparency is, however, a much wider concept. Potential policyholders are in principle entitled to be made aware of the key terms of coverage and to be warned of hidden traps (such as conditions precedent, average clauses and excess provisions), but there are a range of different approaches. Some jurisdictions have adopted a "soft law" approach, using codes of practice for pre-contract disclosure, while other jurisdictions employ the rather nebulous duty of (utmost) good faith. Leaving aside placement, transparency is also demanded after the policy has been incepted. The insured is required to be transparent during the claims process. There is less consistency in national legislation regarding the implementation of transparency by insurers in the context of handling claims.

This book is devoted to the mathematical methods of metamodeling that can be used to speed up the valuation of large portfolios of variable annuities. It is suitable for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and practitioners. It is the goal of this book to describe the computational problems and present the metamodeling approaches in a way that can be accessible to advanced undergraduate students and practitioners. To that end, the book will not only describe the theory of these mathematical approaches, but also present the implementations.

Whether man-made or naturally occurring, large-scale disasters can cause fatalities and injuries, devastate property and communities, savage the environment, impose significant financial burdens on individuals and firms, and test political leadership. Moreover, global challenges such as climate change and terrorism reveal the interdependent and interconnected nature of our current moment: what occurs in one nation or geographical region is likely to have effects across the globe. Our information age creates new and more integrated forms of communication that incur risks that are difficult to evaluate, let alone anticipate. All of this makes clear that innovative approaches to assessing and managing risk are urgently required. When catastrophic risk management was in its inception thirty years ago, scientists and engineers would provide estimates of the probability of specific types of accidents and their potential consequences. Economists would then propose risk management policies based on those experts' estimates with little thought as to how this data would be used by interested parties. Today, however, the disciplines of finance, geography, history, insurance, marketing, political science, sociology, and the decision sciences combine scientific knowledge on risk assessment with a better appreciation for the importance of improving individual and collective decision-making processes. The essays in this volume highlight past research, recent discoveries, and open questions written by leading thinkers in risk management and behavioral sciences. The Future of Risk Management provides scholars, businesses, civil servants, and the concerned public tools for making more informed decisions and developing long-term strategies for reducing future losses from potentially catastrophic events. Contributors: Mona Ahmadiani, Joshua D. Baker, W. J. Wouter Botzen, Cary Coglianese, Gregory Colson, Jeffrey Czajkowski, Nate Dieckmann, Robin Dillon, Baruch Fischhoff, Jeffrey A. Friedman, Robin Gregory, Robert W. Klein, Carolyn Kousky, Howard Kunreuther, Craig E. Landry, Barbara Mellers, Robert J. Meyer, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Robert Muir-Wood, Mark Pauly, Lisa Robinson, Adam Rose, Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Paul Slovic, Phil Tetlock, Daniel Vastfjall, W. Kip Viscusi, Elke U. Weber, Richard Zeckhauser.

You no longer need a traditional employer plan to get good, affordable health insurance. The New Health Insurance Solution can help you cut your health insurance costs in half if: You're self-employed, an independent contractor, or your employer doesn't provide health insurance (you can probably get coverage on your own for about $94/month--a fraction of what an employer would have to pay for the same coverage)You are employed and pay extra to cover your spouse or children under your employer-sponsored plan--you may save 50% by taking them off your employer planYou own a small business and are getting killed by double-digit premium increases--you can now give employees tax-free money to buy their own plans and get your company out of the health insurance business

The book also explains in detail the best solutions for you if: You can't find affordable health insurance because you or a child have an expensive preexisting medical problem (your state has a program to provide you with guaranteed coverage )You're currently putting money into an IRA or a 401(k)--because you don't realize that an HSA is always a better optionYou're unsure how you or your parents will be able to afford health insurance during retirement, or how to maximize benefits from Medicare--including the new Part D prescription drug plan

The New Health Insurance Solution is the definitive guide to the new ways every American can now get affordable health care--without an employer.

PAUL ZANE PILZER is a world-renowned economist, a former advisor in two White House administrations, an entrepreneur/employer, an award-winning adjunct professor at NYU, and a New York Times bestselling author.

This textbook provides a broad overview of the present state of insurance mathematics and some related topics in risk management, financial mathematics and probability. Both non-life and life aspects are covered. The emphasis is on probability and modeling rather than statistics and practical implementation. Aimed at the graduate level, pointing in part to current research topics, it can potentially replace other textbooks on basic non-life insurance mathematics and advanced risk management methods in non-life insurance. Based on chapters selected according to the particular topics in mind, the book may serve as a source for introductory courses to insurance mathematics for non-specialists, advanced courses for actuarial students, or courses on probabilistic aspects of risk. It will also be useful for practitioners and students/researchers in related areas such as finance and statistics who wish to get an overview of the general area of mathematical modeling and analysis in insurance.

The Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) market has expanded in recent years to become a vital source of risk solutions and risk capacity and an important mechanism for the creation of integrated corporate risk management programs. The ART market unites the risk management and product development skills of financial institutions, insurers and reinsurers with the capital of global investors to give corporate risk managers the best possible means of managing financial and operating risks. In a time when natural and man-made disasters and financial volatility are constantly present, the need for dependable, equitably priced risk capacity and innovative, holistic risk solutions has never been greater. The ART market, which can supply both, is thus becoming an integral component of the 21st century financial markets. Alternative Risk Transfer, written by a veteran of the banking and insurance industries, provides a practical, detailed and up-to-date review of the topic. The text is divided into four parts, including Risk and the ART market Insurance and Reinsurance Capital Markets Enterprise Risk Management and the Future of ART The book contains numerous worked examples and case studies to

This book summarizes the state of the art in tree-based methods for insurance: regression trees, random forests and boosting methods. It also exhibits the tools which make it possible to assess the predictive performance of tree-based models. Actuaries need these advanced analytical tools to turn the massive data sets now at their disposal into opportunities. The exposition alternates between methodological aspects and numerical illustrations or case studies. All numerical illustrations are performed with the R statistical software. The technical prerequisites are kept at a reasonable level in order to reach a broad readership. In particular, master's students in actuarial sciences and actuaries wishing to update their skills in machine learning will find the book useful. This is the second of three volumes entitled Effective Statistical Learning Methods for Actuaries. Written by actuaries for actuaries, this series offers a comprehensive overview of insurance data analytics with applications to P&C, life and health insurance.

This book, adopting machine learning techniques for the financial planning field, explores the demand for life insurance as seen in previous literature and both estimates and predicts the demand for the adoption of life insurance using these techniques. Previous studies used diverse perspectives, like actuarial and life span, in order to understand the demand for life insurance, though these approaches have shown inconsistent findings. Employing two theoretical backgrounds-ecological systemic theory and artificial intellectual methodology-this book explores a better estimation and a prediction of the demand for life insurance and will be of interest to academics and students of insurance, financial planning, and risk management.

Kidnap for ransom is a lucrative but tricky business. Millions of people live, travel, and work in areas with significant kidnap risks, yet kidnaps of foreign workers, local VIPs, and tourists are surprisingly rare and the vast majority of abductions are peacefully resolved - often for remarkably low ransoms. In fact, the market for hostages is so well ordered that the crime is insurable. This is a puzzle: ransoming a hostage is the world's most precarious trade. What would be the "right" price for your loved one - and can you avoid putting others at risk by paying it? What prevents criminals from maltreating hostages? How do you (safely) pay a ransom? And why would kidnappers release a potential future witness after receiving their money? Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business uncovers how a group of insurers at Lloyd's of London have solved these thorny problems for their customers. Based on interviews with industry insiders (from both sides), as well as hostage stakeholders, it uncovers an intricate and powerful private governance system ordering transactions between the legal and the criminal economies.

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.

The 2008 financial collapse, the expansion of corporate and private wealth, the influence of money in politics-many of Wall Street's contemporary trends can be traced back to the work of fourteen critical figures who wrote, and occasionally broke, the rules of American finance. Edward Morris plots in absorbing detail Wall Street's transformation from a clubby enclave of financiers to a symbol of vast economic power. His book begins with J. Pierpont Morgan, who ruled the American banking system at the turn of the twentieth century, and ends with Sandy Weill, whose collapsing Citigroup required the largest taxpayer bailout in history. In between, Wall Streeters relates the triumphs and missteps of twelve other financial visionaries. From Charles Merrill, who founded Merrill Lynch and introduced the small investor to the American stock market; to Michael Milken, the so-called junk bond king; to Jack Bogle, whose index funds redefined the mutual fund business; to Myron Scholes, who laid the groundwork for derivative securities; and to Benjamin Graham, who wrote the book on securities analysis. Anyone interested in the modern institution of American finance will devour this history of some of its most important players.

This book deals with Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and, in particular, Quantitative Risk Management (QRM) in life insurance business. Constituting a "bridge" between traditional actuarial mathematics and insurance risk management processes, its purpose is to provide advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the Actuarial Sciences, Finance and Economics with the basics of ERM (in general) and QRM applied to life insurance business. The main topics dealt with are: general issues on ERM, risk management tools for life insurance and life annuities, deterministic and stochastic analysis of the behaviour of a portfolio fund, application of sensitivity testing to assess ranges of results of interest, stress testing to assess the impact of extreme scenarios, and the product development process for life annuity products.

Standards often remain unseen, yet they play a fundamental part in the organisation of contemporary capitalism and society at large. What form of power do they epitomise? Why have they become so prominent? Are they set to be as important for the globalisation of services as for manufactured goods? Graz draws on international political economy and cognate fields to present strong theoretical arguments, compelling research and surprising evidence on the role of standards in the global expansion of services, with in-depth studies of their institutional environment and cases including the insurance industry and business process outsourcing in India. The power of standards resembles a form of transnational hybrid authority, in which ambiguity should be seen as a generic attribute, defining not only the status of public and private actors involved in standardisation and regulation, but also the scope of issues concerned and the space in which such authority is recognised when complying to standards. This book is also available as Open Access.

Sicherheitsmanagement wird mit Hilfe des vorliegenden Handbuchs und der Software Ariadne SMS effizient und kostengunstig. Die Autoren beschreiben die Digitalisierung des Expertenwissens von Unfalluntersuchern und dessen maschinelle Verarbeitung. Das gesamte Unfallgeschehen wird mit algorithmisch auswertbaren Schlusseln strukturiert klassifiziert. Unfalldeskriptoren und Fehlervariablen werden auf der Basis des 3-Ebenen-Modells der Unfallentstehung zu Risikoprofilen und Praventionsmassnahmen verarbeitet. Ariadne SMS basiert auf aktueller Web-IT und ist durch selbstlernende Netze innovativ. Automatisierte Muster- und Spracherkennungsverfahren generieren valide Risikovorhersagen und Simulationen der Wirksamkeit von Massnahmen auf die Risikoverteilung. Fehlerquellen entfallen, Bearbeitungsschritte werden eingespart, Informationen sind transparent und jederzeit verfugbar. Der praktische Einsatz bei Bundeswehr und Berufsgenossenschaften fuhrte zu erheblichen Einsparungen. Anwendungen in Medizin und Unternehmensfuhrung, im Umwelt- und Katastrophenschutz sowie bei Versicherungen sind moeglich.

Michel Denuit - Institut de Statistique, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Xavier Marechal - Reacfin, Spin-off of the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Sandra Pitrebois - Secura, Belgium

Jean-Francois Walhin - Fortis, Belgium

There are a wide range of variables for actuaries to consider when calculating a motorist's insurance premium, such as age, gender and type of vehicle. Further to these factors, motorists' rates are subject to experience rating systems, including credibility mechanisms and Bonus Malus systems (BMSs).

"Actuarial Modelling of Claim Counts" presents a comprehensive treatment of the various experience rating systems and their relationships with risk classification. The authors summarize the most recent developments in the field, presenting ratemaking systems, whilst taking into account exogenous information.

The text: Offers the first self-contained, practical approach to a priori and a posteriori ratemaking in motor insurance. Discusses the issues of claim frequency and claim severity, multi-event systems, and the combinations of deductibles and BMSs. Introduces recent developments in actuarial science and exploits the generalised linear model and generalised linear mixed model to achieve risk classification. Presents credibility mechanisms as refinements of commercial BMSs. Provides practical applications with real data sets processed with SAS software.

"Actuarial Modelling of Claim Counts" is essential reading for students in actuarial science, as well as practicing and academic actuaries. It is also ideally suited for professionals involved in the insurance industry, applied mathematicians, quantitative economists, financial engineers and statisticians.

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.

Index based insurance schemes can play a vital role in insuring poor people in developing countries against a multitude of risk. However, the concept doesn't go along without any obstacles. Matthias Roedl provides a theoretical framework of index based insurance schemes and further highlights where the latter distinguishes from a classic indemnity insurance. Thereby, scholars can gain a comprehensive theoretical insight into the topic, while practitioners are enabled to identify and understand fundamental challenges for their project upfront as well as to foster sound solutions.

This book is written for the experienced portfolio manager and professional options traders. It is a practical guide offering how to apply options math in a trading world that demands mathematical measurement. Every options trader deals with an array of calculations: beginners learn to identify risks and opportunities using a short list of strategies, while researchers and academics turn to advanced technical manuals. However, almost no books exist for the experienced portfolio managers and professional options traders who fall between these extremes. Michael C. Thomsett addresses this glaring gap with The Mathematics of Options, a practical guide with actionable tools for the practical application of options math in a world that demands quantification. It serves as a valuable reference for advanced methods of evaluating issues of pricing, payoff, probability, and risk. In his characteristic approachable style, Thomsett simplifies complex hot button issues-such as strategic payoffs, return calculations, and hedging options-that may be mentioned in introductory texts but are often underserved. The result is a comprehensive book that helps traders understand the mathematic concepts of options trading so that they can improve their skills and outcomes.

Get your financial life in order. This comprehensive and objective guidebook will help you grow your net worth on a steady and increasing basis, regardless of your income level. This new and expanded edition covers changes and strategies to maximize financial benefits and planning resulting from the recent tax legislation, beginning January 2018, and changes to the Affordable Care and Protection Act of 2010. Covering all the financial bases you can reasonably expect to confront in your lifetime, such as insurance, investing, income tax planning, Social Security, Medicare, and more, this vital resource begins with techniques to protect a consumer's personal and business assets. It then transitions into the wealth accumulation process and outlines tax management measures, as well as the distribution of wealth for higher education, retirement, and estate planning purposes. Written by an expert and long-standing educator in the field of personal financial planning, Plan Your Financial Future is a no-nonsense, straightforward, and holistic view of the financial planning process. It is the one resource you need to become a more knowledgeable saver and translate those savings into the accumulation of future wealth. What You'll Learn Insure yourself, your family, and your property against the possibility of significant loss Invest in financial or real assets-or both Implement effective tax planning and management techniques Distribute your estate at death to your intended beneficiaries in a tax-efficient manner Discover strategies to maximize financial health taking into consideration the new tax legislation, effective January 1, 2018 Who This Book Is For Regardless of whether you are a recent college graduate or have spent the past several decades in the working world, this book will give you the smart, commonsense advice you need to get your financial life in order.