Description: An analysis of the 1999-2011 experience of all Blues plans of betweeen $1.8 and $3.8 billion in annual revenue in 2010 to determine if there is any empirical evidence of an industry underwriting cycle. The analysis shows there is no such evidence.

Description: The article outlines a shareholder value framework for pension risk management and applies this framework to pension funding decisions in light of rising PBGC premiums due to 2013’s BBA legislation. The article finds that the new legislation significantly incentivizes plan sponsors to increase pension funding. Moreover, many tax-paying pension plan sponsors can increase shareholder value by increasing pension plan contributions.

Description: Capital allocation by percentile layer has important advantages over existing methods. It highlights a new formulation of value at risk and other capital standards, recognizes the capital usage of losses that do no extend into the tail and captures the disproportionate capital usage of severe losses. From 2007 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, M-AS07-1.

Description: In this paper, we formulate the Capital Allocation problem as an optimization problem in which we seek the mix of business that maximizes an insurance company’s Expected Net After Tax Income subject to a constraint on the Tail Value at Risk TVAR. Using the method of Lagrange multipliers, we demonstrate that the returns on the respective TVAR contributions, so-called RORAC, are equal across all lines of business when the mix of business is optimal. Although the discussions in this paper center on the TVAR, the conclusions hold true for any conditional expected value measure. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: As an alternative to the widely-used 'return on economic capital' RAROC, this paper proposes a performance measure consistent with standard valuation models, and discusses its implications for prudential regulation. From 2007 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, M-AS07-1.

Description: ongoing discussion of the proper interest rate to use in discounting liability cash flows to reflect credit risk of the insurer in a fair value accounting system

Description: This paper introduces a minor modification to the Wacek framework that restores market consistency and additivity. The modification shifts the basis of the cost-of-capital risk margin embedded in the fair value loss reserve from an insurer’s own solvency capital requirement with respect to its claim obligations as prescribed by Solvency II to the required market-clearing capital implied by those obligations, which depends not only on the internal characteristics of the unpaid claim portfolio but also on its correlation with the total market portfolio of unpaid claims.

Description: In this Chapter we present a novel way for estimating aggregated EC figures based on Bayesian copula estimation. Contrary to the classic approach of using a single inter-risk- correlation matrix we derive a probability distribution of possible correlation matrices that enables us to tackle the important issue of parameter uncertainty. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: The author constructed the efficient frontier of new business sales by modeling the embedded value and economic capital against a universe of possible growth rates of the three lines of business in a typical three-year planning horizon. The ERM function can use the efficient frontier of new business to provide a more rigorous analysis of the impact of growth rates on the firm’s overall capital efficiency and value creation, hence forming a feedback loop with the businesses in the planning process to optimize the growth strategy.

Description: This paper focuses on the role of holism in enterprise risk management ERM. The performance measure known as market consistent embedded value is discounted for being overly reductionistic. The concept of an economic capital charge or credit is seen here as a potential bridge from the reductionistic to the holistic approach. It shows some promise for achieving holism, but falls short.