Captives zur Absicherung von Extremrisiken? Eine Untersuchung am Beispiel der OIL Insurance Limited

The use of captive insurance companies (captives) is quite common among big and international companies. Generally, captives are used to insure against high frequency/low severity risks. However, we can find captives which have been founded to deal with extreme risks as well. An example is the OIL Insurance Limited (OIL Insurance). In this context, we examine from a theoretical perspective whether captives are suitable for insurance against catastrophe risks. We show that regarding actuarial aspects captives have advantages in comparison to internal self-insurance and disadvantages in comparison to external insurance. The foundation of industry captives through the association of several companies can solve some of the problems, but further criteria especially costs have to be considered. Based on the developed arguments, we analyse whether our case example OIL Insurance is an appropriate instrument to transfer extreme risks.     

Integrated Risk Management and the Role of the Risk Manager

ABSTRACT: Although the transferring of a firm's pure risk historically has been conducted through the insurance and reinsurance markets, risk managers of large corporations are reportedly becoming more sophisticated with regard to their risk financing strategies. This increased sophistication has come in the form of greater use of techniques such as captives, finite risk insurance, financial reinsurance, and risk retention groups. The purpose of this study is to assess the characteristics and extent of integrated risk management. Using survey data, we evaluate several aspects of risk management integration, including (1) the extent to which risk managers are involved in managing both pure and financial risks facing their firms, (2) the nonoperational types of risks handled by risk managers and the techniques being used to handle a broader set of risks, and (3) the effect that factors such as the size of the firm, the firm's industry, and the background and training of the risk manager has on participation in integrated risk management activities.     

Der Verh?ltnism??igkeitsgrundsatz im Anwendungsbereich des Solvency II-Regimes unter besonderer Berücksichtigung firmeneigener (Rück-)Versicherungsunternehmen

The principle of proportionality is the cornerstone of the new principle-based and risk-oriented approach to regulation pursued by the Solvency?II directive. The article discusses the contents and scope of the principle of proportionality and analyzes the requirements that the principle sets for the new regulatory framework as it applies to captive insurance undertakings. Due to the special characteristics of their business model and their risk exposure, which differ substantially from those of commercial insurance undertakings, the new rules are expected to be particularly onerous for captives at the level of all three pillars of Solvency?II. This threatens the viability of captives solutions as an instrument for an effective and efficient risk management. The article concludes that a stringent application of the principle of proportionality offers solutions for the difficulties that captive insurers are facing as a result of the new regulatory framework. The conclusions drawn in this article should also apply to other insurance undertakings, in particular smaller and medium-sized insurers, for which the new rules are expected to be similarly onerous.     

Enterprise Risk Management: Theory and Practice

The Chief Risk Officer of Nationwide Insurance teams up with a distinguished academic to discuss the benefits and challenges associated with the design and implementation of an enterprise risk management program. The authors begin by arguing that a carefully designed ERM program—one in which all material corporate risks are viewed and managed within a single framework—can be a source of long‐run competitive advantage and value through its effects at both a “macro” or company‐wide level and a “micro” or business‐unit level. At the macro level, ERM enables senior management to identify, measure, and limit to acceptable levels the net exposures faced by the firm. By managing such exposures mainly with the idea of cushioning downside outcomes and protecting the firm's credit rating, ERM helps maintain the firm's access to capital and other resources necessary to implement its strategy and business plan. At the micro level, ERM adds value by ensuring that all material risks are “owned,” and risk‐return tradeoffs carefully evaluated, by operating managers and employees throughout the firm. To this end, business unit managers at Nationwide are required to provide information about major risks associated with all new capital projects—information that can then used by senior management to evaluate the marginal impact of the projects on the firm's total risk. And to encourage operating managers to focus on the risk‐return tradeoffs in their own businesses, Nationwide's periodic performance evaluations of its business units attempt to refl ect their contributions to total risk by assigning risk‐adjusted levels of “imputed” capital on which project managers are expected to earn adequate returns. The second, and by far the larger, part of the article provides an extensive guide to the process and major challenges that arise when implementing ERM, along with an account of Nationwide's approach to dealing with them. Among other issues, the authors discuss how a company should assess its risk “appetite,” measure how much risk it is bearing, and decide which risks to retain and which to transfer to others. Consistent with the principle of comparative advantage it uses to guide such decisions, Nationwide attempts to limit “non‐core” exposures, such as interest rate and equity risk, thereby enlarging the firm's capacity to bear the “information‐intensive, insurance‐ specific” risks at the core of its business and competencies.     

Die Aufsicht über Rückversicherungsunternehmen nach Solvency II

The impacts of the new regulatory system “Solvency II” on the reinsurance sector are not foreseeable in all details yet. This is true especially with regard to the business aspects of insurance and reinsurance. The legal consequences can be summarized as follows: (1) Solvency II for reinsurers and for primary insurers likewise stands for a paradigm shift in regulation. (2) With Solvency II primary insurance regulation and reinsurance regulation will be more aligned as has been the case according to the Solvency I system so far. (3) The specifics of reinsurance business will be taken into account in the Solvency II-directive as well. Many special provisions which are known from the reinsurance directive will remain in place.     

The Uses and Abuses of Finite Risk Reinsurance

Finite risk reinsurance has become the subject of investigations, litigation, and possibly new regulation. This article provides an overview of finite risk solutions and products, describing their main features and their legitimate role in helping (mainly) industrial companies manage timing, funding, and insurance risks.
Finite risk solutions generally take the form of structured insurance products designed to help companies manage risks often regarded as exotic or "tail" risks, such as environmental or asbestos liability. Although such products are underwritten by insurance or reinsurance companies, they typically involve limited risk transfer (hence the name "finite risk") while providing the insured companies with a means of pre-funding their expected losses, or what is often called "pre-loss financing." Of course, companies could choose to self-insure such risks by establishing a reserve for future losses. But finite risk provides a more credible and transparent alternative—one that reassures investors both by capping the liability and eliminating the possibility for manipulation of reserves.
Abuses of finite risk products usually concern the degree to which transactions are accounted for, disclosed, and represented to investors as achieving "significant risk transfer" when there is little or no such transfer. In the authors' words, "Users of finite should ask themselves whether the transaction helps the financial statements clearly represent the true economic income and risks of the business and, if not, then consider not doing the deal."     

International Insurance Society Roundtable on Risk Management After the Crisis

In this roundtable, an adviser to several central banks and founding member of the Group of 30 discusses regulatory reform and corporate risk management strategies with senior executives from three of the world's largest insurance companies. Much of the discussion attempts to explain why insurance and reinsurance companies have proven less vulnerable to the crisis than commercial and investment banks. Part of the explanation has to do with their financial conservatism, which is attributed to a habitual tendency to decision‐making that gives heavy weight to long‐term probabilities and risks. But along with this “actuarial” cast of mind is a growing willingness to accept and make use of risk‐based capital requirements—a decision‐making framework that is, in some respects, in conflict with the accounting and regulatory capital conventions that still prevail in the industry. In particular, “Solvency II”—the risk‐based capital guidelines that are set for adoption in 2012 by insurers in the European Union—is held up as a possible model for global use.     

Lessons from the Financial Crisis on Risk and Capital Management: The Case of Insurance Companies

This article proposes that risk management be viewed as an integral part of the corporate value‐creation process— one in which the concept of economic capital can provide companies with the financial cushion and confidence to carry out their strategic plans. Using the case of insurance and reinsurance companies, the authors discuss three main ways that the integration of risk and capital management creates value:

• 1 strengthening solvency (by limiting the probability of financial distress);
• 2 increasing prospects for profitable growth (by preserving access to capital during post‐loss periods); and
• 3 improving transparency (by increasing the “information content” or “signaling power” of reported earnings).

Insurers can manage solvency risk by using Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) models to limit the probability of financial distress to levels consistent with the firm's specified risk tolerance. While ERM models are effective in managing “known” risks, we discuss three practices widely used in the insurance industry to manage “unknown” and “unknowable” risks using the logic of real options—slack, mutualization, and incomplete contracts. Second, risk management can create value by securing sources of capital that, like contingent capital, can be used to fund profitable growth opportunities that tend to arise in periods following large losses. Finally, the authors argue that risk management can raise the confidence of investors in their estimates of future growth by removing the “noise” in earnings that comes from bearing non‐core risks, thereby making current earnings a more reliable guide to future earnings. In support of this possibility, the authors provide evidence showing that, for a given level of reported return on equity (ROE), (re)insurers with more stable ROEs have higher price‐to‐book ratios, suggesting investors' willingness to pay a premium for the stability provided by risk management.     

Zunehmende Unsicherheit als Risiko für die Versicherung: Risikotransfer zwischen Unternehmen,Banken, Versicherungen und Märkten

The increase in natural and human catastrophes is well documented. For risk averse private customers this increase in risks implies an increase in the willingness to pay for insurance which in turn increases the business possibilities for insurers. However, this argumentation can not be transferred to firm insurance, as, following the work by Modigliani and Miller, companies are in general not to be regarded as being risk averse. In this article we discuss with the example of the demand for reinsurance why firms might want to shift risk to other firms. An empirical study for the German market for reinsurance is presented. The results are then used to discuss whether an increase in risk might lead to an increase in risk transfers between firms and insurers.     

中国的“影子保险”:来自监管自然实验的证据

影子保险在金融稳定中扮演着重要角色,但现有文献较多关注影子银行,对影子保险关注不足。“影子保险”即保险公司通过再保险方式将保险业务转移给不受监管或者受监管较弱的关联企业的活动,这会推高其真实的杠杆水平,增加金融体系脆弱性。然而,由于影子保险的不透明性和缺少自然实验,现有研究仅基于有限数据或模型给出简单的特征事实或结构性估计,很少能从因果关系上清楚地识别影子保险活动及其机制。本文利用中国加强对中资保险公司(处理组)再保险关联交易监管的政策冲击这一自然实验,使用微观数据和双重差分方法,识别了中国金融体系中的影子保险活动。研究发现,相关监管有效降低了影子保险活动,这一效应对集团公司的影响尤为显著;在机制方面,相关监管通过影响中资保险公司资产负债表两端的结构性调整进而降低了其风险承担行为,提高了经营稳定性。本文方法对识别金融机构的监管套利和防范系统性金融风险具有一定参考意义。     

Financial Distress in Australian General Insurers

We develop and test a statistical model to identify Australian general insurers experiencing financial distress over the 1999–2001 period. Using a logit model and two measures of financial distress we are able to predict, with reasonable confidence, the insurers more likely to be distressed. They are generally small and have low return on assets and cession ratios. Relative to holdings of liquid assets they have high levels of property and reinsurance assets, and low levels of equity holdings. They also write more overseas business, and less motor insurance and long‐tailed insurance lines, relative to fire and household insurance.     

Does Reinsurance Need Reinsurers?

The reinsurance market is the secondary market for insurance risks. It has a very specific organization. Direct insurers rarely trade risks with each other. Rather, they cede part of their primary risks to specialized professional reinsurers who have no primary business. This article offers a model of equilibrium in reinsurance and capital markets in which professional reinsurers arise endogenously. Their role is to monitor primary insurers credibly, so that insurers can raise capital more easily. In equilibrium, the financial structure of primary insurers consists of a mix of reinsurance and outside capital. The comparative statics yield empirical predictions which are broadly in line with a number of stylized facts from the reinsurance market.     

WHERE'S THE CAT GOING? SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CATASTROPHE BONDS

This article provides an assessment of the current state of the market for catastrophe (or "Cat") bonds. Given the changes in insurance markets since September 11th, the demand for Cat bonds is likely to increase. For issuers, Cat bonds have the effect of transferring risks to the capital markets that would normally be underwritten by insurance or reinsurance companies. And as a substitute for insurance, Cat bonds have the potential to help issuers address problems such as lack of capacity and real risk transfer, cyclicality, and credit risk that are commonly associated with insurance and reinsurance markets. Investors value Cat bonds in part because of their low correlations with stocks and conventional bonds. Notable trends in the structuring of the products involve higher levels of risk transfer, longer-term contracts, and linkage to a portfolio of catastrophic risks.     

THE REVOLUTION IN CORPORATE RISK MANAGEMENT: A DECADE OF INNOVATIONS IN PROCESS AND PRODUCTS

The explosion of corporate risk management programs in the early 1990s was a hasty and ill‐conceived reaction by U.S. corporations to the great “derivatives disasters” of that period. Anxious to avoid the fate of Barings and Procter & Gamble, most top executives were more concerned about crisis management than risk management. Many companies quickly installed (often outrageously priced) value‐at‐risk (VaR) systems without paying much attention to how such systems fit their specific business requirements. Focused myopically on loss avoidance and technical risk measurement issues, the corporate risk management revolution of the '90s thus got underway in a disorganized, ad hoc fashion, producing a curious amalgam of policies and procedures with no clear link to the corporate mission of maximizing value. But as the risk management revolution unfolded over the last decade, the result has been the “convergence” of different risk management perspectives, processes, and products. The most visible sign of such convergence is a fairly recent development called “alternative risk transfer,” or ART. ART forms consist of the large and growing collection of new risk transfer and financing products now being offered by insurance and reinsurance companies. As just one example, a new class of security known as “contingent capital” gives a company the option over a specified period—say, the next five years—to issue new equity or debt at a pre‐negotiated price. And to hold down their cost, such “pre‐loss” financing options are typically designed to be “triggered” only when the firm is most likely to need an infusion of new capital to avoid underinvestment or financial distress. But underlying—and to a large extent driving—this convergence of insurance and capital markets is a more fundamental kind of convergence: the integration of risk management with corporate financing decisions. As first corporate finance theorists and now practitioners have come to realize, decisions about a company's optimal capital structure and the design of its securities cannot be made without first taking account of the firm's risks and its opportunities for managing them. Indeed, this article argues that a comprehensive, value‐maximizing approach to corporate finance must begin with a risk management strategy that incorporates the full range of available risk management products, including the new risk finance products as well as established risk transfer instruments like interest rate and currency derivatives. The challenge confronting today's CFO is to maximize firm value by choosing the mixture of securities and risk management products and solutions that gives the company access to capital at the lowest possible cost.     

Konvergenz des Versicherungsvertragsrechts in Europa?

Insurance law has been embedded in an international context ever since. This is true not only for marine insurance and reinsurance but also for manifold other branches of the insurance sector. Against this background, the European Single Market and the intended legal harmonisation and integration are particularly important for insurance contract law. The future development of insurance law should give special attention to the question if and to what extent there is a convergence in the respective member state insurance contract laws. At the outset, the comparative analysis shows that French and German insurance contract law is governed by a “risk bearing community model” (Gefahrengemeinschaftsmodell) and that English law can be characterized as an “individual contract model” (Individualvertragsmodell). Convergence is not only found in European directives but also in reforms and reform proposals in member state law.     

Captive finance and firm's competitiveness

We study the effects of establishment of a captive finance subsidiary on parent firm's competitiveness. Firms with captives have higher profitability, larger market share, lower volatility of sales, and maintain lower cash balances. Following the establishment of a captive, a firm's profitability and its industry market share gradually increase, but it takes about four years to become economically relevant. Stock returns of companies with captive finance subsidiaries correlate more with finance industry returns than stock returns of companies without captives. We estimate that captives generate about 17% of parents' net income. Thus, significant part of profits of the largest U.S. industrial corporations comes from what in essence are financial services.     

Market Price of Insurance Risk Implied by Catastrophe Derivatives

Abstract

Insurance derivatives facilitate the trading of insurance risks on capital markets, such as catastrophe derivatives that were traded on the Chicago Board of Trade. Simultaneously, insurance risks are traded through reinsurance portfolios. In this paper we make inferences about the market price of risk implied by the information embedded in the prices of these two assets.     

Rückversicherungen und Alternative Risikotransfers: Ein theoretischer Vergleich

This paper analyses the economic potential of alternative risk transfers (ART) in comparison with classic reinsurance. The particular question discussed is whether ARTs operate as complements or substitutes to reinsurance. We obtain that ARTs are equivalent to reinsurance with respect to their ability to allocate risks optimally. This might be induced by risk aversion of the primary insurer, costs of bankruptcy, solvability regulation, progressive taxes or agency costs. As a consequence, ARTs have to be considered as strong competitors of reinsurance in the standard business of risk transfers. However, ART are dominated by reinsurance with respect to the risk management services which the latter provides.     

Application of parametric insurance in principle‐compliant and innovative ways

There has been a rise of innovative parametric insurance solutions in recent years covering a wide range of risks and serving clients from individuals, to businesses, and to governments. These parametric insurance products cover risks that are otherwise uninsured or underinsured, by simplifying product design and reducing transaction costs. This paper offers a comprehensive review of parametric insurance including a classification of the types of contract and an overview of market practices. We outline the benefits and concerns of parametric insurance in comparison with indemnity insurance, and discuss the legal principle and regulatory compliance matters. We then survey the current global market and identify areas where insurance and reinsurance companies can play important roles in offering or supporting parametric insurance operations. Lastly, we offer a case study on a type of parametric insurance designed to cover earthquake risk in California.     

Chancen und Herausforderungen der Rückversicherung in der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung

In 2009 a so-called morbidity orientated risk structure equalization scheme was installed for the German statutory health insurance in order to minimize structural differences between different providers with respect to revenue and expenditures. Even with this mechanism some risks to the individual health insurance providers remain. Reinsurance could be a way to mitigate these risks, but so far only very few contracts have been signed. Moreover the existing reinsurance contracts only focus on the periphery of the statutory health insurance system such as travel health insurance. In this article we therefore analyse existing risks for individual health insurance providers and evaluate their (re-)insurability. Hereafter the potential for reinsurance solutions in the German statutory health insurance itself as well as in newer forms of healthcare provision (e.g. integrated health care and managed care) is discussed. We find that reinsurance may be a reasonable solution for many of the risks in the statutory health insurance scheme. But as research in this area is very young further analysis of the nature of risks is necessary.