Description: Profiles the Actuarial Science Program at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minn. From Conversations, Winter 2000.

Description: There has been a growing demand for crop insurance in third world countries to combat poverty among farmers. Farmers in these countries could greatly improve crop yields if they had access to higher quality inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers. However, in order to buy these higher quality inputs the farmers need to obtain loans from microfinance institutions. These institutions are reluctant to extend loans to farmers due to the risk of loan default resulting from crop failure. With increasing abnormal weather patterns due to climate change, the concern for crop failure is on the rise and the need for such insurance is becoming more significant. Motivated by a non-governmental organization’s unsuccessful attempt to buy a crop insurance product for the farmers they serve, this paper proposes a design for rainfall indexed crop insurance for maize farmers in Kakamega, a western region of Kenya.

Description: Using data from a large insurance company, we construct a parametric model for the joint survival function based on a Hougaard copula function.

Description: This abstract describes a presentation that provides an opportunity for MLC teachers to discuss various issues arising from the new MLC examination syllabus.