Die demographische Entwicklung in Deutschland und ihre Bedeutung für das Kapitaldeckungsverfahren von Lebensversicherern,privaten Krankenversicherern und Pensionsfonds

The decline in population will increase dramatically after the year 2030; this development is accompanied by a dramatic change of the social structure of the German society and the aging of the population. Policyholders of annuity contracts who are now in the age of 35 will probably retire in the year 2037 and their death can be actuarially awaited near 2060. That means those people are completely affected by the development after 2030. The annuity contracts with a guaranteed interest rate (legally fixed for the duration of the contracts) dominate the new business of life insurance companies. The period of time of the interest rate guarantee can be up to 40 or 50 years. Our demographic profile leads to the assumption that in 2050 we will miss 15 million people of our working population; this represents the actual figure of the working population of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Austria. Consumption, overall investments and the demand of borrowed funds will decrease. The level of the rate of return of bonds or other interest bearing assets will decline. On the other hand, the value of shares of those companies who belong to the winners of the global transition process we have started right now will increase. Unfortunately life insurance companies and pension funds — when they take investment risk — are forced mainly to invest in bonds or other debentures. The consequence can be a not attractive level of return of the premiums paid. A solution would be to reinforce the development and business of non guaranteed annuities and a higher quote of shares in the portfolios. Then it would be the duty of each policyholder to protect himself by diversification     

Kapitalanlagepolitik und -performance der deutschen Lebensversicherer im Spannungsfeld von Buch- und Zeitwerten

The analysis of the investment politics of German life insurers is very difficult, as there is only few information for it available. The following contribution focuses this lack of information and gives a view both of the investment politics and of the performance of these investments. First, using balance sheet data, we derive representative asset classes, which give an impression of the actual asset allocation of the German life insurers. Second, representative indices are selected and a performance measurement is accomplished.     

Die Umstellung der Anlage der Heubeck-Richttafeln von Perioden- auf Generationentafeln und ihre Wirkung auf die Kosten von Pensionszusagen

Most German employers are using mortality tables provided by Heubeck AG, a German consultancy firm, for actuarial calculations of company pension plans. Before 2005, Heubeck AG has been publishing projected future period tables rather than cohort tables. This paper analyzes the cost of using such period tables in actuarial calculations for an individual employee’s defined benefit pension plan. Our benchmark is a plan that is fairly priced by using a cohort table. We find that the employer may incur significant costs from using a period table for calculating plan benefits. As life expectancy tends to be underestimated, benefits granted will be too generous. In contrast, using period tables for determining provisions for plan liabilities in tax accounting doesn’t carry extra costs. Although yearly tax deductions differ when using period or cohort tables, tax shields are roughly the same in NPV terms. Thus, Heubeck’s switch to cohort tables means a significant improvement for benefit calculation but won’t have tax effects, on average.     

Auswirkungen von Solvency II und der neuen EU-Finanzaufsichtsarchitektur auf die Kapitalallokationsstrukturen von Versicherungsgruppen

This paper analyses how the foreseen Solvency II provisions on group solvency calculations will affect the capital allocation within insurance groups. In this respect influencing factors are identified and the incentives set by them are disputed, in particular choice of method (consolidation method vs. deduction and aggregation method), choice of model (internal model vs. standard formula), non-transferability and treatment of participations at solo level. It is shown that the effects will depend heavily on the concrete implementation of the new provisions on the one hand and on the interplay of national supervisors and EIOPA (inter alia in certifying internal models and in setting capital add-ons) on the other hand.     

Vergleich von ökonomischen und biometrischen Risiken in der Personenversicherung

In life insurance both the time and the amount of future payments between insurer and policyholder may be stochastic; biometrical as well as financial risks are transferred to the insurer. We present an approach that allows to decompose the randomness of the discounted value of future benefits and premiums to a sum whose addends correspond to the uncertainty of the policy development, the interest rates, the probabilities of death, the probabilities of disablement, etc. Upon modeling the actuarial assumptions stochastically, we quantify these risk factors for typical life insurance contracts and compare them with each other. Contrary to a common folklore, the examples show that the systematic biometrical risks are in many cases not marginal compared to the interest rate risk.     

Aktuelle Entwicklungen in der Beaufsichtigung und Rechnungslegung von Versicherungsunternehmen: IFRS und Solvency II

Accounting and supervision are closely related, especially via the determination of regulatory capital. As a precondition for the harmonisation of solvency rules within Europe, as discussed in the context of Solvency II, there is a need for harmonised accounting rules regarding the recognition and measurement of assets and liabilities. The International Financial Reporting Standards resp. International Accounting Standards (IFRS resp. IAS) are used as a starting point. Insurance contracts are accounted for under IFRS 4, published in March 2004, which is only established as an interim standard allowing insurance companies to continue their existing accounting policy without major changes in their accounting systems. The IASB has just begun working on a final standard (Phase II). The IASB’s work on the final standard should be taken into account for the determination of regulatory capital as well. The third pillar of Solvency II is an additional connection between international accounting standards and the Solvency II project: extensive disclosure requirements companies shall provide disciplinary transparency with regard to their risk management systems and risk profiles.     

Die Qualifikation der Aufsichtsratsmitglieder von Versicherungsunternehmen nach VAG und Solvency II

Since 2009, the German insurance regulatory law has provided internal qualification standards for the supervisory board members of insurance companies. In accordance with Paragraph 7a sec. 4 clause 1 VAG, the members of supervisory boards are required to be competent at fulfilling their task and supervisory function in line with their expertise. This new stipulated requirement covers the previous standards of the German corporate law, which has been established by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in its “Hertie”-jurisdiction. As such, this jurisdiction will also serve as a basis to interpret the expertise requirements in German insurance regulatory law. Consequently, each of the supervisory board members is obliged to have a certain minimum level of general competencies, whereby the special expertise and advance knowledge have to be safeguarded within the board. Even if the supervisory board members are not “persons with key functions” as per framework directive of Solvency II, nevertheless the imminent transformation of the existing guidelines into the national law itself will indirectly have an impact on the qualification requirements of the supervisory board members in the insurance company industry.     

Methoden zur allokation von sicherheitskapital Darstellung und Beurteilung aus Sicht der Unternehmungsleitung

If the board of an insurance company wants to allocate capital to its business fields it is worth-while to base this decision on a conceptual distinction between profit and risk (safety first-principle). For calculating the amounts of capital allocated five methods can be used. These methods differ in the way risk is measured. To evaluate strengths and weaknesses of these methods four criteria are introduced: power, compatibility regarding the board’s preferences, costs and board involvement. Checking the criteria for each method gives the result that three methods are dominated. The board, therefore, has to choose only between the volatility based method (in its variance-proportional form) and the shortfall based method.     

Versicherungsmedizinische Risikobeurteilung von pathologischen Leberwerten und aktuellen Entwicklungen bei der chronischen Hepatitis

Alcoholic liver disease, non alcoholic fatty liver and chronic viral hepatitis have a high prevalence in the German population. They are associated with significantly increased occupational disability and mortality. Elevated levels of GGT or ALT can be found in about 10 % of the general population. Attempts to identify an underlying diagnosis often remain unsuccessful. In selected cases CDT can be helpful to confirm or rule out suspected alcohol-abuse. Recent studies showed that non alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a potentially severe complication of diabetes and its metabolic precursors. Treatment options for chronic viral hepatitis get more and more sophisticated, but the rates of sustained cure are still unsatisfactory, especially in hepatitis B with negative HBe-antigen and the hepatitis C genotypes 1, 4 and 5. Life long suppression of HBV replication by nucleoside analogues seems to prevent liver cirrhosis, but may become a great burden on health costs. The risk assessment of HBV carriers and of patients with successfully treated viral hepatitis should rely on the expertise of experienced physicians.     

Zu den zwei Versicherungsbegriffen von Werner Mahr und ihrer Bedeutung in der heutigen Zeit

Werner Mahr differentiates between two notions of insurance based upon either the mutuality or the speculation principle. While Mahr however supposes that these two principles melt into the pure insurance-technological economics through the interplay of the probability principle, the differences will be stressed. In the first step, the (theoretical) distinctions are elaborated between the “ideal” insurance model of K. J. Arrow, based on the mutuality principle, and the “classical” insurance model of K. Borch, building on the speculation principle or the reserve theory according to A. Willett. In the second step, these differentiations are elucidated with the help of three examples: uncertainty about the risks, correlated risks, and macroeconomic, in particular demographic risks.