Description: Medical insurance today is more like pre-paid medical payments. Medical insurance should be bought for protection, but rarely used, like auto insurance.

Description: Reinsurance reduces the required capital of the primary insurer but increases that of the reinsurer. Capital is costly. All capital costs, including that of the insurer and the reinsurer, are ultimately borne by primary policyholders. Reducing the total capital of insurers and reinsurers brings down the total capital cost and the total primary policy premium. A reinsurance arrangement is considered optimal—if it minimizes the total required capital. This optimal reinsurance is an attracting equilibrium under price competition. Evidence suggests an inverse relationship between the total required capital and the correlation between the losses held by different insurers and reinsurers. Examples are constructed to examine this and other properties of the optimal reinsurance.

Description: A glossary of terms.

Description: Catastrophic insurance futures are being traded, albeit thinly, at the Chicago Board of Trade. This paper examines the broad context for trading insurance risk. The motivation for trading insurance risks, specifically to increase the capacity to cover risk, is discussed. From Securitization of Insurance Risk: The 1995 Bowles Symposium, M-FI97-1.

Description: This paper reviews the main methodological questions underlying the theoretical pricing of catastrophe insurance futures. From Securitization of Insurance Risk: The 1995 Bowles Symposium, M-FI978-1.