Traditional life insurance products, in particular participating life insurance contracts, are often criticized. Their performance is often said to be poor compared to other investment alternatives. Interestingly, this perception appears to persist although very little research has been conducted into the performance of participating life insurance contracts. But are participating life insurance contracts actually bad for policyholders? We conduct a performance analysis based on contracts offered in the German market, in order to provide evidence to support decision making by policyholders.Zusammenfassung Traditionelle Lebensversicherungsprodukte wie die gemischte Kapitallebensversicherungen werden seit Jahren immer wieder kritisiert. Zu nennen ist zum Beispiel der Hamburger Ampelcheck, welcher die gemischte Kapitallebensversicherung als nicht geeignet für die Altersvorsorge ansieht. Doch wie gut oder schlecht ist dieses Versicherungsprodukt wirklich für die Versicherungsnehmer? Die Forschung in diesem Bereich ist limitiert. Deshalb führen wir eine umfassende Performanceanalyse von der gemischten Kapitallebensversicherung durch, um privaten Investoren eine Entscheidungshilfe zur Verfügung zu stellen.
a b s t r a c tThe fair pricing of explicit and implicit options in life insurance products has received broad attention in the academic literature over the past years. Participating life insurance (PLI) contracts have been the focus especially. These policies are typically characterized by a term life insurance, a minimum interest rate guarantee, and bonus participation rules with regard to the insurer's asset returns or reserve situation. Researchers replicate these bonus policies quite differently. We categorize and formally present the most common PLI bonus distribution mechanisms. These bonus models closely mirror the Danish, German, British, and Italian regulatory framework. Subsequently, we perform a comparative analysis of the different bonus models with regard to risk valuation. We calibrate contract parameters so that the compared contracts have a net present value of zero and the same safety level as the initial position, using risk-neutral valuation. Subsequently, we analyze the effect of changes in the asset volatility and in the initial reserve amount (per contract) on the value of the default put option (DPO), while keeping all other parameters constant. Our results show that DPO values obtained with the PLI bonus distribution model of Bacinello (2001), which replicates the Italian regulatory framework, are most sensitive to changes in volatility and initial reserves.
In the European insurance industry, regulatory and reporting frameworks are currently subject to far-reaching reforms. We focus on four of these frameworks, namely the Solvency II framework, insurance guaranty systems, the proposed IFRS 4 Phase II international accounting standards, and Market Consistent Embedded Value reporting. We present these frameworks, analyze them from the insurance company's management, investors, and policyholder perspectives, and compare them. Our analysis implies that the four frameworks need to be considered jointly, due to various interrelations and interactions. We argue that a coordinated introduction will be necessary to ensure that the regulatory burden is reduced and synergies can be utilized in the event of all four frameworks being implemented as planned. Furthermore, we analyze the challenges of a holistic, comprehensive approach to insurance reporting and regulation and its implementation in order to achieve the goals set by the frameworks.
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