Description: By identifying specific exogenous and insurer specific factors related to life-insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. The Life Insurers performance measurements are 1. Return on Equity, 2. Return on Assets and 3. Increase in Capital and Surplus. This paper has been submitted to the North American Actuarial Journal for publication considerations. This documents the specific charts embedded in the report. Please see the SOA web site for the detail report.

Description: Under Yaari's dual theory of risk, this paper determines the equilibrium separating contracts for high and low risks in a competitive insurance market, in which risks are defined only by their expected losses, that is, a high risk is a risk that has a greater expected loss than a low risk. The authors also determine the pooling equilibrium contract when insurers are assumed non-myopic. Utility theory generally predicts that optimal insurance indemnity payments are nonlinear functions of the underlying loss due to the nonlinearity of agents' utility functions. Under Yaari's dual theory, the authors show that under mild technical conditions the indemnity payment is a piecewise linear function of the loss, a common property of insurance coverages.

Description: The Society of Actuaries seeks to provide actuaries of life insurance companies with a systematic approach for estimating the adverse effects of economic developments that could impede insurer performance. The performance measurements include 1. Return on Equity, 2. Return on Assets, and 3. Increase in Surplus and Capial. Toward that end, this study combines market and economic factors with insurer-specific data to form dynamic financial models of life insurers. Empirical analysis is based on annual data from 1985 through 1995 for 1,593 life insurers. By identifying important exogenous and insurer-specific factors related to life insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. The study also identifies and describes several web sites that provide access to relevant economic and financial data. Also see the SOA website research page for excel spread sheets that have the charts that should be inserted in this report