Kaiserslautern - Fachbereich Mathematik
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The aim of this thesis is to introduce an equilibrium insurance market model and study its properties and possible applications in risk class management.
First, an insurance market model based on an equilibrium approach is developed. Depending on the premium, the insured will choose the amount of coverage they buy in order to maximize their expected utility. The behavior of the insurer in different market regimes is then compared. While the premiums in markets with perfect competition are calculated in order to make no profit at all, insurers try to maximize their margins in a monopolistic market.
In markets modeled in this way several phenomena become evident. Perhaps the most important one is the so-called push-out effect. When customers with different attributes are insured together, insurance might become so expensive for one type of customers that those agents are better off with buying no insurance at all. The push-out effect was already shown for theoretical examples in the literature. We present a comprehensive analysis of the equilibrium insurance market model and the push-out effect for different insurance products such as life, health and disability insurance contracts using real-life data from different sources. In a concluding chapter we formulate indicators when a push-out can be expected and when not.
Machine learning regression approaches such as neural networks have gained vast popularity in recent years. The exponential growth of computing power has enabled larger and more evolved networks that can perform increasingly complex tasks. In our feasibility study about the use of neural networks in the regression of equilibrium insurance premiums it is shown that this regression is quite robust and the risk of overfitting can almost be excluded -- as long as the regression is performed on at least a few thousand data points.
Grouping customers of different risk types into contracts is important for the stability and the robustness of an insurance market. This motivates the study of the optimal assignment of risk classes into contracts, also known as rating classes. We provide a theoretical framework that makes use of techniques from different mathematical fields such as non-linear optimization, convex analysis, herding theory, game theory and combinatorics. In addition, we are able to show that the market specifications have a large impact on the optimal allocation of risk classes to contracts by the insurer. However, there does not need to be an optimal risk class assignment for each of these specifications.
To address this issue, we present two different approaches, one more theoretical and another that can easily be implemented in practice. An extension of our model to markets with capacity constraints rounds off the topic and extends the applicability of our approach.
Life insurance companies are asked by the Solvency II regime to retain capital requirements against economically adverse developments. This ensures that they are continuously able to meet their payment obligations towards the policyholders. When relying on an internal model approach, an insurer's solvency capital requirement is defined as the 99.5% value-at-risk of its full loss probability distribution over the coming year. In the introductory part of this thesis, we provide the actuarial modeling tools and risk aggregation methods by which the companies can accomplish the derivations of these forecasts. Since the industry still lacks the computational capacities to fully simulate these distributions, the insurers have to refer to suitable approximation techniques such as the least-squares Monte Carlo (LSMC) method. The key idea of LSMC is to run only a few wisely selected simulations and to process their output further to obtain a risk-dependent proxy function of the loss. We dedicate the first part of this thesis to establishing a theoretical framework of the LSMC method. We start with how LSMC for calculating capital requirements is related to its original use in American option pricing. Then we decompose LSMC into four steps. In the first one, the Monte Carlo simulation setting is defined. The second and third steps serve the calibration and validation of the proxy function, and the fourth step yields the loss distribution forecast by evaluating the proxy model. When guiding through the steps, we address practical challenges and propose an adaptive calibration algorithm. We complete with a slightly disguised real-world application. The second part builds upon the first one by taking up the LSMC framework and diving deeper into its calibration step. After a literature review and a basic recapitulation, various adaptive machine learning approaches relying on least-squares regression and model selection criteria are presented as solutions to the proxy modeling task. The studied approaches range from ordinary and generalized least-squares regression variants over GLM and GAM methods to MARS and kernel regression routines. We justify the combinability of the regression ingredients mathematically and compare their approximation quality in slightly altered real-world experiments. Thereby, we perform sensitivity analyses, discuss numerical stability and run comprehensive out-of-sample tests. The scope of the analyzed regression variants extends to other high-dimensional variable selection applications. Life insurance contracts with early exercise features can be priced by LSMC as well due to their analogies to American options. In the third part of this thesis, equity-linked contracts with American-style surrender options and minimum interest rate guarantees payable upon contract termination are valued. We allow randomness and jumps in the movements of the interest rate, stochastic volatility, stock market and mortality. For the simultaneous valuation of numerous insurance contracts, a hybrid probability measure and an additional regression function are introduced. Furthermore, an efficient seed-related simulation procedure accounting for the forward discretization bias and a validation concept are proposed. An extensive numerical example rounds off the last part.
The central theme in this thesis concerns the development of enhanced methods and algorithms for appraising market and credit risks and their application within the context of standard and more advanced market models. Generally, methods and algorithms for analysing market risk of complex portfolios involve detailed knowledge of option sensitivities, the so-called "Greeks". Based on an analysis of symmetries in financial market models, relations between option sensitivities are obtained, which can be used for the efficient valuation of the Greeks. Mainly, the relations are derived within the Black Scholes model, however, some relations are also valid for more general models, for instance the Heston model. Portfolios are usually influenced by lots of underlyings, so it is necessary to characterise the dependencies of these basic instruments. It is usual to describe such dependencies by correlation matrices. However, estimations of correlation matrices in practice are disturbed by statistical noise and usually have the problem of rank deficiency due to missing data. A fast algorithm is presented which performs a generalized Cholesky decomposition of a perturbed correlation matrix. In contrast to the standard Cholesky algorithm, an advantage of the generalized method is that it works for semi-positive, rank deficient matrices as well. Moreover, it gives an approximative decomposition when the input matrix is indefinite. A comparison with known algorithms with similar features is performed and it turns out, that the new algorithm can be recommended in situations where computation time is the critical issue. The determination of a profit and loss distribution by Fourier inversion of its characteristic function is a powerful tool, but it can break down when the characteristic function is not integrable. In this thesis, methods for Fourier inversion of non-integrable characteristic functions are studied. In this respect, two theorems are obtained which are based on a suitable approximation of the unknown distribution with known density and characteristic function. Further it will be shown, that straightforward Fast Fourier inversion works, when the according density lives on a bounded interval. The above techniques are of crucial importance to determine the profit and loss distribution (P&L) of large portfolios efficiently. The so-called Delta Gamma normal approach has become industrial standard for the estimation of market risk. It is shown, that the performance of the Delta Gamma normal approach can be improved substantially by application of the developed methods. The same optimization procedure also applies to the Delta Gamma Student model. A standard tool for computing the P&L distribution of a loan portfolio is the CreditRisk+ model. Basically, the CreditRisk+ distribution is a discrete distribution which can be computed from its probability generating function. For this a numerically stable method is presented and as an alternative, a new algorithm based on Fourier inversion is proposed. Finally, an extension of the CreditRisk+ model to market risk is developed, which distribution can be obtained efficiently by the presented Fourier inversion methods as well.