Life in the tube

Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus, Cyberia, and Playing the Future, explains how sensationalism in the media tends to promote our culture's natural, unexpressed agendas. This is an optimistic appraisal of the seemingly banal and exploitative fora of tabloid television, ‘Court TV’ and ‘Cops’. Such low-brow media, when approached from an evolutionary perspective, reveal themselves as the process by which closeted social issues are brought out into the cultural conversation exactly when they need to be.     

Life Expectancy in the Future

Abstract

The public responsibility of life insurance actuaries has changed from supervisory compliance with detailed state laws to certifying adherence to more general regulatory objectives complemented by actuarial standards of practice.     

对人身险再保险在寿险公司风险管理中应用的探讨

随着人身保险业务的不断发展,寿险公司面临非正常死亡风险、长寿风险、利差风险和特别承保风险.人身险再保险是寿险公司转移风险、防止责任累积过大的风险管理工具之一,主要分为比例再保险、非比例再保险和财务再保险三种类型.寿险公司应通过科学确定自留额、选择合适的分保方式、谨慎采用财务再保险来安排人身险分保.     

低碳,让生活更美好!

汽车轮胎的座椅,废弃水槽的座椅,零排餐厅盛菜的盘子可以吃掉,享受日光浴的绿色屋顶植被……这些都发生在上海世博园内两栋相互连接的零二氧化碳排放的建筑里,它就是伦敦零碳馆。     

吉林省寿险业存在的问题及对策

吉林省寿险业与国内平均水平、世界平均水平相比都存在很大差距。应采取切实可行的前瞻性对策，实施以保障改革，求发展，保稳定的新战略，采取必要措施，支持和扶持吉林省寿险业的发展。     

Racial Differences in the Demand for Life Insurance

The objective of this article is to measure racial differences in the proportion of human capital that households protect with life insurance. Using the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances data, racial differences in two stages of the process are tested, where it is assumed that households must decide both whether or not to purchase life insurance and how much of their human capital to insure (if they decide to purchase). Among married and cohabitating households, we find that, controlling for demographics and other factors, there is little difference in life insurance ownership between black and white households but that white households insure a larger proportion of their human capital than black households.     

Life Insurance Mathematics with Random Life Tables

Abstract

When the insurer sells life annuities, projected life tables incorporating a forecast of future longevity must be used for pricing and reserving. To fix the ideas, the framework of Lee and Carter is adopted in this paper. The Lee-Carter model for mortality forecasting assumes that the death rate at age x in calendar year t is of the form exp(α_x + (β_xK_t), where the time-varying parameter K_t reflects the general level of mortality and follows an ARIMA model. The future lifetimes are all influenced by the same time index K_t in this framework. Because the future path of this index is unknown and modeled as a stochastic process, the policyholders' lifetimes become dependent on each other. Consequently the risk does not disappear as the size of the portfolio increases: there always remains some systematic risk that cannot be diversified, whatever the number of policies. This paper aims to investigate some aspects of actuarial mathematics in the context of random life tables. First, the type of dependence existing between the insured life lengths is carefully examined. The way positive dependence influences the need for economic capital is assessed compared to mutual independence, as well as the effect of the timing of deaths through Bayesian credibility mechanisms. Then the distribution of the present value of payments under a closed group of life annuity policies is studied. Failing to account for the positive dependence between insured lifetimes is a dangerous strategy, even if the randomness in the future survival probabilities is incorporated in the actuarial computations. Numerical illustrations are performed on the basis of Belgian mortality statistics. The impact on the distribution of the present value of the additional variability that results from the Lee-Carter model is compared with the traditional method of mortality projection. Also, the impact of ignoring the dependence hat arises from the model is quantified.     

评英国寿险抵押贷款产品风波——一个群体性事件的监管实践

本文分析了英国寿险抵押贷款产品的特点和其失败的原因,并从当时英国金融服务局的监管措施中总结出保险产品设计和销售的经验以及有效解决投诉的监管原则。