A spatial machine learning model for analysing customers’ lapse behaviour in life insurance

Spatial analysis ranges from simple univariate descriptive statistics to complex multivariate analyses and is typically used to investigate spatial patterns or to identify spatially linked consumer behaviours in insurance. This paper investigates if the incorporation of publicly available spatially linked demographic census data at population level is useful in modelling customers’ lapse behaviour (i.e. stopping payment of premiums) in life insurance policies, based on data provided by an insurance company in Ireland. From the insurance company’s perspective, identifying and assessing such lapsing risks in advance permit engagement to prevent such incidents, saving money by re-evaluating customer acquisition channels and improving capital reserve calculation and preparation. Incorporating spatial analysis in lapse modelling is expected to improve lapse prediction. Therefore, a hybrid approach to lapse prediction is proposed – spatial clustering using census data is used to reveal the underlying spatial structure of customers of the Irish life insurer, in conjunction with traditional statistical models for lapse prediction based on the company data. The primary contribution of this work is to consider the spatial characteristics of customers for life insurance lapse behaviour, via the integration of reliable government provided census demographics, which has not been considered previously in actuarial literature. Company decision-makers can use the insights gleaned from this analysis to identify customer subsets to target with personalized promotions to reduce lapse rates, and to reduce overall company risk.