This paper investigates the effects of a rise in interest rate and lapse risk of endowment life insurance policies on the liquidity and solvency of life insurers. We model the book and market value balance sheet of an average German life insurer, subject to both GAAP and Solvency II regulation,...

A tontine provides a mortality driven, age-increasing payout structure through the pooling of mortality. Because a tontine does not entail any guarantees, the payout structure of a tontine is determined by the pooling of individual characteristics of tontinists. Therefore, the surrender decision...

Insurances with capital funds (unit-linked, UFK), i.e. life and annuity saving and covering insurances combined with shares in selected investment funds of financial institutions are considered as additional form of pension saving. However, they are frequently seen as uneconomical products,...

We use a two factor model of life insurer stock returns to measure interest rate risk at U.S. and U.K. insurers. Our estimates show that interest rate risk among U.S. life insurers increased as interest rates decreased to historically low levels in recent years. For life insurers in the U.K., in...

Die vorliegende Dissertation besteht aus vier Teilen, die sich mit den Themen Alternative Investments, Katastrophenrisiko und Asset Pricing im Versicherungskontext auseinandersetzen. Mithilfe verschiedener Finanzinstrumente (Aktien, Fonds und Optionen) wird die Bilanz eines...

Traditional participating life insurance contracts with year-to-year (cliquet-style) guarantees have come under pressure in the current situation of low interest rates and volatile capital markets, in particular when priced in a market-consistent valuation framework. In addition, such guarantees...

The changing social, financial and regulatory frameworks, such as an increasingly aging society, the current low interest rate environment, as well as the implementation of Solvency II, lead to the search for new product forms for private pension provision. In order to address the various...

Lebensversicherungsunternehmen (LVU) in Deutschland verwalten zu Anfang des Jahres 1990 Kapitalanlagen im Wert von über 410 Milliarden DM. Dabei haben sie ihre Kapitalanlagepolitik an den in § 54 Abs. 1 Versicherungsaufsichtsgesetz (VAG) kodifizierten Grundsätzen auszurichten: Sicherheit,...

Households buy life insurance as part of their liquidity management. The option to surrender such a policy can serve as a buffer when a household faces a liquidity need. In this study, we investigate empirically which individual and household specific sociodemographic factors influence the...

Jan Natolski behandelt die Problematik der Quantifizierung des Risikokapitals aus einer theoretischen Perspektive, die in wertvolle Impulse für die praktische Handhabung mündet. Dies ist ein wichtiger Schritt, da Versicherungsunternehmen durch die Richtlinie Solvency II verpflichtet sind,...

I assess how Basel III, Solvency II and the low interest rate environment will affect the financial connection between the bank and insurance sector by changing the funding patterns of banks as well as the investment strategies of life insurance companies. Especially for life insurance...

Während der vergangenen zehn Jahre wurde Solvency II, das neue regulatorische Rahmenwerk für Versicherungsunternehmen, von der Europäischen Union (EU) ausgearbeitet. Der erste Teil dieser Dissertation umfasst zwei Artikel, welche das Marktrisikomodul des neuen Aufsichtssystems behandeln. Ziel...

The Liikanen Group proposes contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds as a potential mechanism to enhance financial stability in the banking industry. Especially life insurance companies could serve as CoCo bond holders as they are already the largest purchasers of bank bonds in Europe. We develop a...

Life insurers typically grant policyholders a surrender option. We demonstrate that the resulting lapse risk could materialise in the form of a "policyholder run" if interest rates were to increase sharply. An inverse stress test based on a unique set of regulatory panel data suggests that...

The problem of the valuation of life insurance payments with policyholder behavior is studied. First, a simple survival model is considered, and it is shown how cash flows without policyholder behavior can be modified to include surrender and free policy behavior by calculation of simple...

Using a two-account model with event risk, we model life insurance contracts taking into account both guaranteed and non-guaranteed payments in participating life insurance as well as in unit-linked insurance. Here, event risk is used as a generic term for life insurance events, such as death,...

Guarantees are often seen as the key characteristics of pension saving products, but securing them can become costly and is of central relevance especially in the course of the current low interest rate environment. In this article, we deal with the question of how costly the typical types of...