Determining accurate capital requirements is a central activity across the life insurance industry. This is computationally challenging and often involves the acceptance of proxy errors that directly impact capital requirements. Within simulation-based capital models, where proxies are being used, capital estimates are approximations that contain both statistical and proxy errors. Here, we show how basic error analysis combined with targeted exact computation can entirely eliminate proxy errors from the capital estimate. Consideration of the possible ordering of losses, combined with knowledge of their error bounds, identifies an important subset of scenarios. When these scenarios are calculated exactly, the resulting capital estimate can be made devoid of proxy errors. Advances in the handling of proxy errors improve the accuracy of capital requirements.

One complication in mortality modelling is capturing the impact of risk factors that contribute to mortality differentials between different populations. Evidence has suggested that mortality differentials tend to diminish over age. Classical methods such as the Gompertz law attempt to capture mortality patterns over age using intercept and slope parameters, possibly causing an unjustified mortality crossover at advanced ages when applied independently to different populations. In recent research, Richards (Scandinavian Actuarial Journal 2020(2), 110–127) proposed a Hermite spline (HS) model that describes the age pattern of mortality differentials using one parameter and circumvents an unreasonable crossover by default. The original HS model was applied to pension data at individual level in the age dimension only. This paper extends the method to model population mortality in both age and period dimensions. Our results indicate that in addition to possessing desirable fitting properties, the HS approach can produce accurate mortality forecasts, compared with the Gompertz and P-splines models.

A detailed analysis of management and performance fees for asset managers and investment funds is undertaken. While fund fees are considered as a cost of capital for investors, the structuring of such fee mechanisms in a fund can also influence a fund manager’s decisions and investment strategy, thereby also influencing the investment performance of the investors funds. The study undertaken will allow for an assessment of the effect of fee structures and the potential for asymmetric incentives to arise that may promote adverse risk-taking behaviours by the fund manager, to the detriment of the investor or retiree who places a portion of their retirement savings into such a managed fund with such fee structures. As such, understanding the mechanism of fee charging as well as pricing the fees correctly is vital. An exploration of the application of actuarial distortion pricing methods for complete and incomplete market valuation is performed on a variety of path-dependent option-like performance fee structures for various funds in the European and American markets. Furthermore, several scenario analysis and sensitivity studies are undertaken. The class of Net Asset Value models adopted are Lévy processes, and the pricing is performed via Monte Carlo techniques.

This article examines the impact of the largest claims reinsurance treaties on loss reserve of the ceding company. The largest claims reinsurance, known as LCR, and ECOMOR reinsurance treaties are considered to be the two most appropriate reinsurance treaties for large or catastrophe claims. Then, it studies the impact of such treaties on loss reserves. Through a simulation study, it shown that, under a more general situation, the LCR treaty can be a more efficient (in some sense, see below) treaty than the ECOMOR treaty for the ceding company.

This paper considers the pricing of long-term options on assets such as housing, where either government intervention or the economic nature of the asset limits large falls in prices. The observed asset price is modelled by a geometric Brownian motion (“the notional price”) reflected at a lower barrier. The resulting observed price has standard dynamics but with localised intervention at the barrier, which allows arbitrage with interim losses; this is funded by the government’s unlimited powers of intervention, and its exploitation is subject to credit constraints. Despite the lack of an equivalent martingale measure for the observed price, options on this price can be expressed as compound options on the arbitrage-free notional price, to which standard risk-neutral arguments can be applied. Because option deltas tend to zero when the observed price approaches the barrier, hedging with the observed price gives the same results as hedging with the notional price and so exactly replicates option payoffs. Hedging schemes are not unique, with the cheapest scheme for any derivative being the one which best exploits the interventions at the barrier. The price of a put is clear: direct replication has a lower initial cost than synthetic replication, and the replication portfolio always has positive value. The price of a call is ambiguous: synthetic replication has a lower initial cost than direct replication, but the replication portfolio may give interim losses. So the preferred replication strategy (and hence price) of a call depends on what margin payments need to be made on these losses.

A quantification of the financial implications of the design of a funded, collective defined contribution (CDC) pension scheme is presented and illustrated. It is done through an attribution analysis, which allows the importance of various elements of CDC scheme design to be determined. The model of a CDC scheme analysed is based lightly on the first CDC scheme set to be approved in the UK. In the CDC scheme analysed, contributions are fixed and the initial benefit accrued by each contribution is fixed. Once accrued, benefits are subsequently adjusted annually in response to changes in assumptions and returns. An attribution of the benefit payments shows that this design gives higher benefits to the first generations and lower benefits to the last generations, for a scheme which starts with no members. The contributions paid also affect the balance of benefits paid between generations. Too high a contribution is to the advantage of the first generations. Too low a contribution is in the interests of the later generations. The conclusion, within the simple model considered, is that a constant benefit accrual is an important design choice. Its financial consequences across all generations should be carefully analysed, if it is intended to be implemented. Additionally, contributions should be reviewed regularly in such a CDC scheme, to ensure that cross-subsidies are not borne excessively by particular generations.