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Decrease of capital guarantees in life insurance products: Can reinsurance stop it?

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  • Escobar-Anel, Marcos
  • Havrylenko, Yevhen
  • Kschonnek, Michel
  • Zagst, Rudi

Abstract

We analyze the potential of reinsurance for reversing the current trend of decreasing capital guarantees in life insurance products. Providing an insurer with an opportunity to shift part of the financial risk to a reinsurer, we solve the insurer's dynamic investment-reinsurance optimization problem under simultaneous Value-at-Risk and no-short-selling constraints. We introduce the concept of guarantee-equivalent utility gain and use it to compare life insurance products with and without reinsurance. Our numerical studies indicate that the optimally managed reinsurance allows the insurer to offer significantly higher capital guarantees to clients without any loss in the insurer's expected utility. The longer the investment horizon and the less risk-averse the insurer, the more prominent the reinsurance benefit.

Suggested Citation

  • Escobar-Anel, Marcos & Havrylenko, Yevhen & Kschonnek, Michel & Zagst, Rudi, 2022. "Decrease of capital guarantees in life insurance products: Can reinsurance stop it?," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 14-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:insuma:v:105:y:2022:i:c:p:14-40
    DOI: 10.1016/j.insmatheco.2022.03.009
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    Cited by:

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    2. Yevhen Havrylenko & Maria Hinken & Rudi Zagst, 2022. "Risk sharing in equity-linked insurance products: Stackelberg equilibrium between an insurer and a reinsurer," Papers 2203.04053, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    3. Xuelian Li & Shiu-Chieh Chiu & Jyh-Horng Lin & Yuxin Xie, 2024. "Assessing insurer guarantee cover and risk retention toward SDG 3: a structure-break down-and-out call valuation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Portfolio optimization; Value-at-risk; Allocation constraint; Insurance; Reinsurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

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