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The development of a simple and intuitive rating system under Solvency II

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  • Van Laere, Elisabeth
  • Baesens, Bart

Abstract

Regulatory authorities pay considerable attention to setting minimum capital levels for different kinds of financial institutions. Solvency II, the European Commission's planned reform of the regulation of insurance companies is well underway. One of its consequences will be a shift in focus to internally based models in determining the regulatory capital needed to cover unexpected losses. This evolution emphasises the importance of credit risk assessment through internal ratings. In light of this new prudential regulation, this paper suggests a Basel II compliant approach to predicting credit ratings for non-rated corporations and evaluates its performance compared to external ratings. The paper provides an interesting modelling of non-financial European companies rated by S&P. In developing the model, broad applicability is set as an important boundary condition. Even though the model developed is fairly simple and maintains a high level of granularity, it gives high rates of accuracy and is very interpretable.

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  • Van Laere, Elisabeth & Baesens, Bart, 2010. "The development of a simple and intuitive rating system under Solvency II," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 500-510, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:insuma:v:46:y:2010:i:3:p:500-510
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    Cited by:

    1. René Doff, 2016. "The Final Solvency II Framework: Will It Be Effective?," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 41(4), pages 587-607, October.
    2. Laurens Swinkels & David Blitz & Winfried Hallerbach & Pim Vliet, 2018. "Equity Solvency Capital Requirements - What Institutional Regulation Can Learn from Private Investor Regulation," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(4), pages 633-652, October.
    3. Eling, Martin & Pankoke, David, 2013. "Basis Risk, Procylicality, and Systemic Risk in the Solvency II Equity Risk Module," Working Papers on Finance 1306, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    4. A.V. Larionov, 2020. "Assessing the Financial Stability of Insurance Companies by Analyzing the Dynamics of Cash Flows," Journal of Applied Economic Research, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 19(2), pages 208-224.

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