Description: This paper provides an outline of the pricing methodology used by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia which incorporates trend analysis by trend component. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.

Description: This paper gives a brief review of advanced time series models, the state space model, using Monte Carlo techniques and subsequently illustrates their usefulness to practicing actuaries. The models employed allow for the possibilities of nonnormal errors and nonlinear functionals in the state equation, the observational equation or both. The approach is illustrated with several examples and data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Description: In this paper the authors analyze data from group medical expense insurance claims and show that many insurance loss distributions have very 'heavy tails' because large losses represent a disproportionate fraction of the total cost. They also present a simple model to reproduce and explain the large loss behavior. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1990, VOL. 2

Description: The zeta distribution with regression parameters has been rarely used in statistics because of the difficulty of estimating the parameters by traditional maximum likelihood. This is the abstract of a paper that proposes an alternative method for estimating the parameters based on an iteratively reweighted least-squares algorithm.

Description: This paper describes a method to determine confidence intervals for trend involving resampling - with replacement but without random numbers - of numerical convolutions for sums and quotients, and the estimating of confidence intervals for trend in average size major medical claims.

Description: This paper shows the mortality element can be partially isolated allowing an exact annuity value to be readily obtained at any interest rate. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1979, Vol.2.

Description: This article investigates the properties of the Gompertz distribution function. Explicit formulas for continuous life insurances and annuities are given in terms of the left-truncated gamma function. Moreover, approximations for the mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis of the Gompertz distribution are also given. Finally, the article shows that using a Gompertz assumption at fractional ages produces better a approximation than the usual UDD assumption.

Description: The method described in this paper is to allocate surplus to each category of business and reserves in proportion to its estimated effect on an insurer's surplus variation. Risk load for each category of business is then selected so that the return on allocated surplus for each category is equal to the overall return on surplus. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.

Description: In estimating mortality rates from the experience of a life insurance company or employee-benefit plan, it is expedient, because of the movement into and out of the covered group on dates other than birthdays or policy anniversaries, to make some assumption about mortality over a fractional part of a year of age. This paper describes and develops the concept of 'exposure' with regard to the more commonly known methods of estimating the rate of mortality, and proposes a fourth methodology. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1978, Vol.2.

Description: This paper studies the joint distribution of the time of ruin, the surplus immediately before ruin, and the deficit at ruin. The classical model is generalized by discounting with respect to the time of ruin. The authors show how to calculate an expected discounted penalty, which is due at ruin, and may depend on the deficit at ruin and the surplus immediately before ruin.