Description: This paper presents a methodology of pricing the guaranteed minimum death benefit of a variable annuity in a market model with jumps. Recent developments in the stock market make variable annuities very attractive products from the insured point of view, but less attractive for insurers. The insured still has the possibility of investment benefits, while avoiding the risk of a stock market collapse. The insurer wants to minimize its risk and yet sell a competitive product. The financial market model consists of one riskless asset and one risky asset whose price jumps in proportions J at some random times T which correspond to the jump times of a Poisson process. The model describes incomplete markets and there is no perfect hedging. In the second part of the paper, we describe a possible method of risk analysis for binomial tree models.

Description: The main objective of this study is to analyze and control a surplus dependent risk process, where larger surpluses allow for a wider underwriting policy. We focus here mostly on the diffusion approximation of the risk process. The results are derived in two papers Brownian motion in Risk Theory, submitted for publication, and Surplus dependent risk processes defined by stochastic differential equations, in preparation. We only include here a long summary of these papers.

Description: This paper discusses a general model for calculating life contingencies including formulation of the model and net reserves and contingency reserves.

Description: Investment Fallacies: Gambler’s Fallacy: Probability of Reversion

Description: In a series papers by Willmot and Lin, both exponential and non-exponential bounds for the tail probability of various compound distributions have been derived. In Wilmot, it was suggested that non-exponential bounds for the ruin probability were difficult to obtain using martingale arguments. In this note, we show how to use martingale inequalities to obtain some upper bounds for the ruin probability.

Description: The investment risk generated by a stochastic interest rate is recognized as often the greatest risk associated with a whole life or retirement policy. Recent research has investigated the mathematics of this risk when the interest rate follows a stochastic process and the time to death is considered to be random. In this paper we focus on the use of the zero coupon bond as an investment instrument to fund a whole life policy. It is unlikely that a company will entirely fund a particular single policy with a zero coupon bond.

Description: Investment Fallacies: The Best Model Doesn't Win

Description: Is Risk/Return a sound tool for decision-making? No. It is not consistent, not objective, distorts decision and degrades governance. Why? What shall we do then?

Description: Investment Fallacies: A real-world approach to Value at Risk

Description: This paper builds a new risk model for a firm which is sensitive to its credit quality. A modified Jarrow, Lando and Turnball model [Markov Chain model] is used to model the credit rating. Recursive equations for finite time ruin probability and distribution of ruin time are derived. Coupled Volterra type integral equation systems for ultimate ruin probability, severity of ruin and joint distribution of surplus before and after ruin are also obtained. Some numerical results are included.