IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/gpprii/v43y2018i3d10.1057_s41288-017-0076-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital Under Solvency II: Implications for the Asset Management of Insurance Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Braun

    (Institute of Insurance Economics, University of St. Gallen)

  • Hato Schmeiser

    (Institute of Insurance Economics, University of St. Gallen)

  • Florian Schreiber

    (Institute of Insurance Economics, University of St. Gallen)

Abstract

We derive a European life insurer’s return on risk-adjusted capital (RORAC) under the Solvency II capital requirements. To do so, we draw on historical time series data and construct a large number of asset allocations, taking into account current portfolio shares of the German life insurance industry. Subsequently, we determine expected profits and market risk capital charges by means of the standard formula. Our results indicate that the RORAC is mainly driven by the capital requirements, while the expected profits are almost irrelevant. Moreover, we show that less-diversified portfolios with high asset risk need to be backed by low capital buffers and therefore result in high RORAC values. Well-diversified portfolios with balanced risk–return profiles, on the other hand, involve higher capital charges and thus achieve low RORAC figures. Hence, under Solvency II, a RORAC-based performance measurement may have detrimental effects for a life insurer’s stakeholders.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Braun & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2018. "Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital Under Solvency II: Implications for the Asset Management of Insurance Companies," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(3), pages 456-472, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:43:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1057_s41288-017-0076-x
    DOI: 10.1057/s41288-017-0076-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41288-017-0076-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41288-017-0076-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Eling & Hato Schmeiser & Joan T. Schmit, 2007. "The Solvency II Process: Overview and Critical Analysis," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 10(1), pages 69-85, March.
    2. Alexander Braun & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2017. "Portfolio Optimization Under Solvency II: Implicit Constraints Imposed by the Market Risk Standard Formula," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 84(1), pages 177-207, March.
    3. Alexander Braun & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2015. "Solvency II's Market Risk Standard Formula: How Credible Is the Proclaimed Ruin Probability," Journal of Insurance Issues, Western Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-30.
    4. Düll, Robert & König, Felix & Ohls, Jana, 2017. "On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 93-106.
    5. Katharina Fischer & Sebastian Schlütter, 2015. "Optimal Investment Strategies for Insurance Companies when Capital Requirements are Imposed by a Standard Formula*," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 40(1), pages 15-40, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bernd Engelmann & Ha Pham, 2020. "Measuring the Performance of Bank Loans under Basel II/III and IFRS 9/CECL," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-21, September.
    2. Flores, Eduardo & de Carvalho, João Vinicius França & Sampaio, Joelson Oliveira, 2021. "Impact of interest rates on the life insurance market development: Cross-country evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    3. Beer, Simone & Braun, Alexander & Marugg, Andrin, 2019. "Pricing industry loss warranties in a Lévy–Frailty framework," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 171-181.
    4. Eduardo Ramos-P'erez & Pablo J. Alonso-Gonz'alez & Jos'e Javier N'u~nez-Vel'azquez, 2022. "Mack-Net model: Blending Mack's model with Recurrent Neural Networks," Papers 2205.07334, arXiv.org.
    5. Schlütter, Sebastian & Fianu, Emmanuel Senyo & Gründl, Helmut, 2022. "Responsible investments in life insurers' optimal portfolios under solvency constraints," ICIR Working Paper Series 45/22, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    6. Roy Kouwenberg, 2018. "Strategic asset allocation for insurers under Solvency II," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(7), pages 447-459, December.
    7. Paulusch, Joachim & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2021. "Sensitivity-implied tail-correlation matrices," ICIR Working Paper Series 33/19, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR), revised 2021.
    8. Alexander Braun & Sebastian Utz & Jiahua Xu, 2019. "Are insurance balance sheets carbon-neutral? Harnessing asset pricing for climate change policy†," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 44(4), pages 549-568, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roy Kouwenberg, 2018. "Strategic asset allocation for insurers under Solvency II," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(7), pages 447-459, December.
    2. Liu, Shuyan & Jia, Ruo & Zhao, Yulong & Sun, Qixiang, 2019. "Global consistent or market-oriented? A quantitative assessment of RBC standards, solvency II, and C-ROSS," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    3. Schlütter, Sebastian & Fianu, Emmanuel Senyo & Gründl, Helmut, 2022. "Responsible investments in life insurers' optimal portfolios under solvency constraints," ICIR Working Paper Series 45/22, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    4. Paulusch, Joachim & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2021. "Sensitivity-implied tail-correlation matrices," ICIR Working Paper Series 33/19, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR), revised 2021.
    5. Marcos Escobar & Paul Kriebel & Markus Wahl & Rudi Zagst, 2019. "Portfolio optimization under Solvency II," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 281(1), pages 193-227, October.
    6. Beer, Simone & Braun, Alexander & Marugg, Andrin, 2019. "Pricing industry loss warranties in a Lévy–Frailty framework," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 171-181.
    7. Meier, Samira & Rodriguez Gonzalez, Miguel & Kunze, Frederik, 2021. "The global financial crisis, the EMU sovereign debt crisis and international financial regulation: lessons from a systematic literature review," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Eckert, Johanna & Gatzert, Nadine, 2018. "Risk- and value-based management for non-life insurers under solvency constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 266(2), pages 761-774.
    9. Aigner, Philipp, 2023. "Identifying scenarios for the own risk and solvency assessment of insurance companies," ICIR Working Paper Series 48/23, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    10. Boyer, M. Martin & Cowins, Elicia P. & Reddic, Willie D., 2019. "Portfolio rebalancing behavior with operating losses and investment regulation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 313-328.
    11. Alberto Dreassi & Stefano Miani & Andrea Paltrinieri & Alex Sclip, 2018. "Bank-Insurance Risk Spillovers: Evidence from Europe," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(1), pages 72-96, January.
    12. Kyriakos Georgiou & Athanasios N. Yannacopoulos, 2023. "Probability of Default modelling with L\'evy-driven Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes and applications in credit risk under the IFRS 9," Papers 2309.12384, arXiv.org.
    13. Eling, Martin & Gatzert, Nadine & Schmeiser, Hato, 2009. "Minimum standards for investment performance: A new perspective on non-life insurer solvency," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 113-122, August.
    14. Eling, Martin & Jia, Ruo & Schaper, Philipp, 2017. "Get the Balance Right: A Simultaneous Equation Model to Analyze Growth, Profitability, and Safety," Working Papers on Finance 1716, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    15. Shim Jeungbo & Lee Seung-Hwan, 2017. "Dependency between Risks and the Insurer’s Economic Capital: A Copula-based GARCH Model," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-29, January.
    16. Niedrig, Tobias, 2015. "Optimal asset allocation for interconnected life insurers in the low interest rate environment under solvency regulation," SAFE Working Paper Series 97, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    17. Ferro, Gustavo, 2010. "Insurance regulation and the credit crisis. What’s new?," MPRA Paper 22296, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Fueki, Takuji & Hürtgen, Patrick & Walker, Todd B., 2024. "Zero-risk weights and capital misallocation," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. Choo, Weihao & de Jong, Piet, 2016. "Insights to systematic risk and diversification across a joint probability distribution," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 142-150.
    20. Martin Eling & Ruo Jia & Philipp Schaper, 2022. "The magic triangle: growth, profitability and safety in the insurance industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 47(2), pages 321-348, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:43:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1057_s41288-017-0076-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.