Ah models, my old friends. You’re always wrong, but sometimes helpful. Often dangerous too. A recent article in The Actuary magazine addressed whether “de-risking in members’ best interests?” I say “recent” even though it’s from August because I am a little behind on my The Actuary reading. In the article, the authors demonstrate that by …
Continue reading “Modelling one side of a two-sided problem”
Credit Life regulations have been live for long enough now that insurers are starting to feel the impact and the shake-up of amongst industry players is starting to emerge. There have been plenty of debate around the regulations, in part because of the dramatic financial and operational impact they will have, and partly because of …
Continue reading “Credit Life regulations and reactions (1)”
Insurance is misunderstood. Consumers ascribe malice where often practical restrictions are to blame. Take deductibles for example. A deductible in an insurance claim decreases the number of claims an insurer has to deal with. More than that though, it reduces the claims where the administration costs of checking out the claim and paying it are …
Continue reading “Zero deductibles and innovation from insurtech”
This is part 2 of a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. Non-life claims reserves are regularly not discounted, for bad reasons and good. This part of the series looks at the related issue of inflation in claims reserving. (You’ll have to wait for part 3 for me to talk about the analysis that …
Continue reading “Claims analysis, inflation and discounting (part 2)”
I’ve had the privilege to straddle life insurance and non-life insurance (P&C, general, short term insurance, take your pick of terms) in my career. On balance, I think having significant exposure to both has increased my knowledge in each rather than lessened the depth of my knowledge in either. I’ve been able to transport concepts …
Continue reading “Claims analysis, inflation and discounting (part 1)”
If you haven’t heard about CRISPR and CAS9, you won’t understand why I say it seems likely that my children will be the last in my line that are “pure natural” descendants. My grandchildren will almost certainly be genetically altered in some direct way due to the explosion of genetic manipulation possibilities just beginning to …
In 2014, John Oliphant was fired from the Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF) where he was principal executive officer. There were allegations, some details not disputed, that had Mr Oliphant accused of exceeding his powers and not following due process which amounted to, at the maximum, some hundreds of thousands of Rands. That outcome, with …
Aviva in France is still dealing with having written the worst insurance policy in the world. From the sounds of things, they weren’t alone in this foible. It’s also hard to say as an outsider what the right or reasonable resolution to their current problem is, but here is the policy that they wrote. Buy …
