Silvana M. Pesenti, Alberto Bettini, Pietro Millossovich, Andreas Tsanakas
{"title":"Scenario Weights for Importance Measurement (SWIM) – an R package for sensitivity analysis","authors":"Silvana M. Pesenti, Alberto Bettini, Pietro Millossovich, Andreas Tsanakas","doi":"10.1017/s1748499521000130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1748499521000130","url":null,"abstract":"The Scenario Weights for Importance Measurement (<jats:bold>SWIM</jats:bold>) package implements a flexible sensitivity analysis framework, based primarily on results and tools developed by Pesenti <jats:italic>et al</jats:italic>. (2019). <jats:bold>SWIM</jats:bold> provides a stressed version of a stochastic model, subject to model components (random variables) fulfilling given probabilistic constraints (stresses). Possible stresses can be applied on moments, probabilities of given events, and risk measures such as Value-At-Risk and Expected Shortfall. <jats:bold>SWIM</jats:bold> operates upon a single set of simulated scenarios from a stochastic model, returning scenario weights, which encode the required stress and allow monitoring the impact of the stress on all model components. The scenario weights are calculated to minimise the relative entropy with respect to the baseline model, subject to the stress applied. As well as calculating scenario weights, the package provides tools for the analysis of stressed models, including plotting facilities and evaluation of sensitivity measures. <jats:bold>SWIM</jats:bold> does not require additional evaluations of the simulation model or explicit knowledge of its underlying statistical and functional relations; hence, it is suitable for the analysis of black box models. The capabilities of <jats:bold>SWIM</jats:bold> are demonstrated through a case study of a credit portfolio model.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138529748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Statistical features of persistence and long memory in mortality data","authors":"G. Peters, Hongxuan Yan, J. Chan","doi":"10.1017/S1748499521000129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1748499521000129","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Understanding core statistical properties and data features in mortality data are fundamental to the development of machine learning methods for demographic and actuarial applications of mortality projection. The study of statistical features in such data forms the basis for classification, regression and forecasting tasks. In particular, the understanding of key statistical structure in such data can aid in improving accuracy in undertaking mortality projection and forecasting when constructing life tables. The ability to accurately forecast mortality is a critical aspect for the study of demography, life insurance product design and pricing, pension planning and insurance-based decision risk management. Though many stylised facts of mortality data have been discussed in the literature, we provide evidence for a novel statistical feature that is pervasive in mortality data at a national level that is as yet unexplored. In this regard, we demonstrate in this work a strong evidence for the existence of long memory features in mortality data, and second that such long memory structures display multifractality as a statistical feature that can act as a discriminator of mortality dynamics by age, gender and country. To achieve this, we first outline the way in which we choose to represent the persistence of long memory from an estimator perspective. We make a natural link between a class of long memory features and an attribute of stochastic processes based on fractional Brownian motion. This allows us to use well established estimators for the Hurst exponent to then robustly and accurately study the long memory features of mortality data. We then introduce to mortality analysis the notion from data science known as multifractality. This allows us to study the long memory persistence features of mortality data on different timescales. We demonstrate its accuracy for sample sizes commensurate with national-level age term structure historical mortality records. A series of synthetic studies as well a comprehensive analysis of real mortality death count data are studied in order to demonstrate the pervasiveness of long memory structures in mortality data, both mono-fractal and multifractal functional features are verified to be present as stylised facts of national-level mortality data for most countries and most age groups by gender. We conclude by demonstrating how such features can be used in kernel clustering and mortality model forecasting to improve these actuarial applications.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1748499521000129","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44726005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Joint modelling of male and female mortality rates using adaptive P-splines","authors":"Kai Hon Tang, Erengul Dodd, J. Forster","doi":"10.1017/S1748499521000105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1748499521000105","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Raw mortality data often exhibit irregular patterns due to randomness. Graduation refers to the act of smoothing crude mortality rates. In this paper, we propose a flexible and robust methodology for graduating mortality rates using adaptive P-splines. Since the observed data at high ages are often sparse and unreliable, we use an exponentially increasing penalty. We use mortality data of England and Wales and model male and female mortality rates jointly by means of penalties, achieving borrowing of information between the two sexes.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1748499521000105","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42655306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of mortality shocks on modelling and insurance valuation as exemplified by COVID-19","authors":"Simon Schnürch, T. Kleinow, R. Korn, A. Wagner","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3835907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3835907","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic interrupts the relatively steady trend of improving longevity observed in many countries over the last decades. We claim that this needs to be addressed explicitly in many mortality modelling applications, for example, in the life insurance industry. To support this position, we provide a descriptive analysis of the mortality development of several countries up to and including the year 2020. Furthermore, we perform an empirical and theoretical investigation of the impact a mortality jump has on the parameters, forecasts and implied present values of the popular Lee–Carter mortality model. We find that COVID-19 has resulted in substantial mortality shocks in many countries. We show that such shocks have a large impact on point and interval forecasts of death rates and, consequently, on the valuation of mortality-related insurance products. We obtain similar findings under the Cairns–Blake–Dowd mortality model, which demonstrates that the effects caused by COVID-19 show up in a variety of models. Finally, we provide an overview of approaches to handle extreme mortality events such as the COVID-19 pandemic in mortality modelling.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41673455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"mvClaim: an R package for multivariate general insurance claims severity modelling","authors":"Sen Hu, T. B. Murphy, A. O'Hagan","doi":"10.1017/S1748499521000099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1748499521000099","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The mvClaim package in R provides flexible modelling frameworks for multivariate insurance claim severity modelling. The current version of the package implements a parsimonious mixture of experts (MoE) model family with bivariate gamma distributions, as introduced in Hu et al., and a finite mixture of copula regressions within the MoE framework as in Hu & O’Hagan. This paper presents the modelling approach theory briefly and the usage of the models in the package in detail. This package is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/senhu/.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1748499521000099","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44962260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Panjer class revisited: one formula for the distributions of the Panjer (a,b,n) class","authors":"Michael Fackler","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3813246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3813246","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The loss count distributions whose probabilities ultimately satisfy Panjer’s recursion were classified between 1981 and 2002; they split into six types, which look quite diverse. Yet, the distributions are closely related – we show that their probabilities emerge out of one formula: the binomial series. We propose a parameter change that leads to a unified, practical and intuitive, representation of the Panjer distributions and their parameter space. We determine the subsets of the parameter space where the probabilities are continuous functions of the parameters. Finally, we give an inventory of parameterisations used for Panjer distributions.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46540893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Spark C. Tseung, A. Badescu, Tsz Chai Fung, X. Lin
{"title":"LRMoE.jl: a software package for insurance loss modelling using mixture of experts regression model","authors":"Spark C. Tseung, A. Badescu, Tsz Chai Fung, X. Lin","doi":"10.1017/S1748499521000087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1748499521000087","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper introduces a new julia package, LRMoE, a statistical software tailor-made for actuarial applications, which allows actuarial researchers and practitioners to model and analyse insurance loss frequencies and severities using the Logit-weighted Reduced Mixture-of-Experts (LRMoE) model. LRMoE offers several new distinctive features which are motivated by various actuarial applications and mostly cannot be achieved using existing packages for mixture models. Key features include a wider coverage on frequency and severity distributions and their zero inflation, the flexibility to vary classes of distributions across components, parameter estimation under data censoring and truncation and a collection of insurance ratemaking and reserving functions. The package also provides several model evaluation and visualisation functions to help users easily analyse the performance of the fitted model and interpret the model in insurance contexts.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1748499521000087","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48927521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tree-based models for variable annuity valuation: parameter tuning and empirical analysis","authors":"Zhiyu Quan, Guojun Gan, Emiliano Valdez","doi":"10.1017/s1748499521000075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1748499521000075","url":null,"abstract":"Variable annuities have become popular retirement and investment vehicles due to their attractive guarantee features. Nonetheless, managing the financial risks associated with the guarantees poses great challenges for insurers. One challenge is risk quantification, which involves frequent valuation of the guarantees. Insurers rely on the use of Monte Carlo simulation for valuation as the guarantees are too complicated to be valued by closed-form formulas. However, Monte Carlo simulation is computationally intensive. In this paper, we empirically explore the use of tree-based models for constructing metamodels for the valuation of the guarantees. In particular, we consider traditional regression trees, tree ensembles, and trees based on unbiased recursive partitioning. We compare the performance of tree-based models to that of existing models such as ordinary kriging and generalised beta of the second kind (GB2) regression. Our results show that tree-based models are efficient in producing accurate predictions and the gradient boosting method is considered the most superior in terms of prediction accuracy.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138529741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Valuation of long-term care options embedded in life annuities","authors":"A. Chen, Michel Fuino, Thorsten Sehner, J. Wagner","doi":"10.1017/S1748499521000063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1748499521000063","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In most industrialised countries, one of the major societal challenges is the demographic change coming along with the ageing of the population. The increasing life expectancy observed over the last decades underlines the importance to find ways to appropriately cover the financial needs of the elderly. A particular issue arises in the area of health, where sufficient care must be provided to a growing number of dependent elderly in need of long-term care (LTC) services. In many markets, the offering of life insurance products incorporating care options and LTC insurance products is generally scarce. In our research, we therefore examine a life annuity product with an embedded care option potentially providing additional financial support to dependent persons. To evaluate the care option, we determine the minimum price that the annuity provider requires and the policyholder’s willingness to pay for the care option. For the latter, we employ individual utility functions taking account of the policyholder’s condition. We base our numerical study on recently developed transition probability data from Switzerland. Our findings give new and realistic insights into the nature and the utility of life annuity products proposing an embedded care option for tackling the financing of LTC needs.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1748499521000063","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42816646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Automatic analysis of insurance reports through deep neural networks to identify severe claims","authors":"Isaac Cohen Sabban, O. Lopez, Yann Mercuzot","doi":"10.1017/S174849952100004X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S174849952100004X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, we develop a methodology to automatically classify claims using the information contained in text reports (redacted at their opening). From this automatic analysis, the aim is to predict if a claim is expected to be particularly severe or not. The difficulty is the rarity of such extreme claims in the database, and hence the difficulty, for classical prediction techniques like logistic regression to accurately predict the outcome. Since data is unbalanced (too few observations are associated with a positive label), we propose different rebalance algorithm to deal with this issue. We discuss the use of different embedding methodologies used to process text data, and the role of the architectures of the networks.","PeriodicalId":44135,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Actuarial Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S174849952100004X","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44803732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}