Description: This discussion at a Smaller Company Forum is about the challenges that smaller companies face in three areas - actuarial student recruiting and training, gross premium determination, and agency building.

Description: Gross premium calculation methods may be arbitrarily separated into: a- Type 1 methods those which initially have commissions and other per cent of premium expenses in the denominator and b- Type 2 methods those which initially have commissions and other per cent of premium expenses in the numerator. The traditional Type 1 methods directly calculate the gross premium. The purpose of this paper is: 1. to present a Type 1 method of gross premium calculation which does the following: a Incorporates the cost of reinsurance into the gross premium calculation and may be shown as a level annual cost over the gross premium calculation period. b Calculates the effect on profit margins of a change in the retention limit without redoing the original calculation. c Calculates the premiums needed to break even e.g., amortize the initial investment in surplus at the end of each policy year as a by-product. d Calculates the profit or loss generated in each policy year or over any number of policy years for any gross premium without redoing the original calculation or first using a trial gross premium. e Directly solves for the gross premium that will produce any specified profit over any number of policy years without redoing the original calculation or first using a trial gross premium. f Directly solves for the premium that will produce a specified yield on surplus invested in new business by a flexible technique not first involving the use of the renewal net premium or any other preliminary gross premium. 2. to provide a mathematical definition of a financially meaningful average policy size which recognizes the cost of reinsurance. 3. to provide for mathematical definitions of common measures of profit, and the mathematical relationships between them. 4. To establish formulas expressing the effect of changes in various assumptions used in the gross premium calculation as a lev