Risk Management Case Project

Case projects are valuable tools for teaching risk management and insurance (RMI). This article describes a flexible case study approach that can be used as a comprehensive capstone project for the RMI major or in modules for graduate and undergraduate RMI courses. The project incorporates both fundamental RMI concepts and emerging trends in the field. The use of the case project provides benefits to both students and the RMI program, especially given the increasing pressure for assessment in college curricula.     

建立大学生互助保险基金的可行性分析——基于完善大学生医疗保障体系的角度

1985年我国开始推行学生平安保险,2008年9月国家又明确规定将大学生纳入城镇居民基本医疗保障体系,大学生医疗保障体系就此初步建立。但此体系只能提供最基本的医疗保障,大学生医保、学平险所未覆盖的地方或保障不足的地方则需要进一步完善,譬如大学生重疾保障、意外身故等。本文以完善大学生医疗保障体系为目的,重点分析了大学生互助保险基金实行的必要性和可行性,并结合湖北经济学院实际,测算了大学生互助保险基金的缴费水平、收支情况等。分析结果显示,大学生互助保险基金是切实可行的。     

江苏农村小额人身保险的调查——基于资源配置角度

农村小额人身保险已在全国多个省份进行试点,并取得了阶段性成果。文章从资源配置角度总结出江苏农村小额人身保险开展的可行性因素以及可能存在的风险,并针对江苏保险业实际情况和目前的经济大环境提出一些可行的对策,推动小额保险项目的创新与可持续发展。     

Insurance Rating Games: Strikes,Spares, and Bags

Carefully designed classroom activities and games can be used to increase student engagement, motivation, and learning. This article describes two games that have been used with students of risk management and insurance to help highlight the intricacies of insurance pricing. These two games, bowling insurance and bags insurance, help students experience the challenging nature of premium determination in risk transfer contracts and also connect the various actions taken by insurers during the insurance transaction.     

Two Classroom Simulations in Financial Risk Management and Insurance

ABSTRACT: Few classroom experiences provide as much educational value as a simulation exercise. A properly structured simulation provides students with the motivation to learn, the opportunity to explore strategies in an environment conducive to experimentation, and the immediate instructional benefit of watching their decisions affect the outcome of the collective simulation experience. This article describes the procedure and relative success of two classroom simulations for students in introductory and intermediate risk management and insurance courses. The first simulation replicates the risk management function of futures contracts through the use of hypothetical traders in the corn market with different risk management needs. The corn futures trading simulation achieves several goals for an introductory course in risk management and insurance: (1) students learn the importance of capital market risk management mechanisms; (2) students understand the transfer of risk among hedgers and speculators; and (3) students receive exposure to the concept that risk management is both possible and necessary for both speculative and pure risks. The second simulation mimics the operation of the market for homeowners insurance. By dividing students into consumer groups and insurer groups, participants experience the effect of chance events and insurance purchase decisions on their wealth. Small groups of upper‐level students act as insurers, and must price, package, and sell their product with a limited amount of surplus. Introductory students serve as consumers with limited resources who must survey the market and decide what product to buy and from whom. The competitive element and relatively unregulated market provide students with the incentive to innovate in a market for a common type of insurance and also demonstrates the need for some amount of insurance regulation. These simulations supply a simple way to enhance students' understanding of important basic concepts in a format that provides a welcome break from the traditional lecture format.     

Insurance on the Internet

ABSTRACT: The Internet is obviously a force that is here to stay. Every segment of the economy is experiencing dramatic change and is having to respond to shifts in the value chain, enhanced consumer power, and altered competitive cycles. Although the insurance industry has characteristics that should put it at the forefront of Internet adoption, certain cultural and technological factors could continue to limit penetration in the near term.
Four strategic business models emerging from the competitive field are: marketplace/exchange, work-site marketing, transaction processor, and eyeball attractor. This article identifies the factors for success within each model, then provides a competitor analysis to grade insurance e-commerce organizations on various competencies from Web site functionality to insurance capabilities.     

Accounting in the fifth grade—is it too early?

This paper describes a project that teaches principles of accounting and Microsoft Excel to gifted and talented fifth graders. The course material was adapted from a college course usually taught at the sophomore level. Students learned about business transactions, financial statements, and business decision-making. Score differences on pretests and posttests showed learning at a statistically significant level (P<0.01). Fifth graders’ posttest scores were not statistically different (P>0.05) from college sophomores who took the same test. The importance of this project is that elementary age students can form very favorable impressions of accounting, which may be beneficial to the students and to the accounting profession. Almost all of the fifth grade students desired to learn more about accounting. This project is also an excellent opportunity to involve Beta Alpha Psi in a rewarding service experience.     

Projects to enrich the study of financial reporting

This article describes a teaching program in financial accounting where projects based on published financial statements are given to the students in order to achieve specified learning objectives. The criteria for selection of a company, the students' brief for each project, and follow-up seminars are described.     

Shamrock Shirt Co.'s non-interest bearing note

Student knowledge engineering is a new instructional technique which places students in the role of expert systems developers. This paper examines the feasibility, costs and benefits of this technique within the context of the accounting curriculum. A knowledge engineering project in the area of taxation is presented and evaluated by monitoring students' problem solving behaviour before, during and after developing their expert systems. Evidence suggests that knowledge engineering provides and environment in which students learn to (1) search, (2) read with a problem solving frame of mind, (3) communicate logically, (4) organize and structure accounting knowledge, and (5) logically problem solve, while learning accounting content material. In addition, knowledge engineering gives students a hands-on introduction to expert systems technology. Student knowledge engineering was implemented and evaluated in an Accounting Information Systems course. Student experiences were generally positive and confirmed expectations. Times required for completion of the projects were similar to those of other major course assignments.     

Teaching financial literacy in a co-curricular service-learning model

The current economic environment has brought to light the financial literacy epidemic in this country. A lack of personal financial education has contributed to the increase in consumer credit debt, a trend evident for many college students who often have significant credit card debt. One way to combat this problem is through financial literacy education. This paper describes a service-learning project implemented through a Beta Alpha Psi chapter, which fulfills the educational objectives of the accounting curriculum and addresses an educational need. The project provides reciprocity of learning between members of Beta Alpha Psi and their audience, college underclassmen. The results indicate that the project is successful in educating both presenters and audience members on basic financial knowledge as well as developing technical and communication skills of Beta Alpha Psi members. The project outline presented in this paper provides a framework for others to use.     

Using journal entries to teach partnership tax: An illustrative case

The use of journal entries to teach partnership taxation concepts provides students with a visual tool that liberates them from the memorization of formulas that has long been a staple in partnership tax education. Employing journal entries as our pedagogy, we present a case designed to be a comprehensive project for a stand-alone graduate partnership taxation course. We also provide guidance for how individual components within the case can be assigned, which could be particularly useful to instructors of business entity tax courses. Our case provides a resource that will assist instructors in teaching and students in understanding (1) the book accounting requirements, and (2) the interrelationship between the tax and book reporting requirements. Graduate tax students who completed this case in its entirety agree that the case meets its stated learning objectives, and that journal entries are an effective tool for analyzing partnership tax transactions and make learning partnership taxation easier.     

大学生医疗保险的现状分析与政策改进——基于内蒙古自治区呼和浩特市6所高校的实证研究

通过对呼和浩特市6所高校的学生访谈和问卷调查，分析得出：将大学生纳入城镇居民基本医疗保险试点范围的政策，初步实现了与公费医疗的制度转换，但还有不少问题，需要进一步的改进和完善。笔者认为，要根据大学生的生理特点、经济承受能力以及对医疗保险的需求意愿，坚持分责制的建制理念，以“重预防、保大病”为重点，建立一种以疾病预防保健为基础，基本医疗保险为核心，大额医疗保险为应急和商业保险为辅助的大学生医疗保障模式。     

Stimulating the Demand for Insurance

This article acts as a review and also a guide to policymakers who are interested in understanding the determinants of insurance demand and how it affects general economic development. By providing a synopsis and evaluation of existing empirical research on the development of insurance markets, this article provides a discussion of the factors that promote insurance market development. This article then highlights certain issues that both insurance companies and policymakers can utilize further in their own markets to design future policies that can be geared to promote insurance market development.     

Nontraditional student withdrawal from undergraduate accounting programmes: a holistic perspective

A collaborative project of several Quebec universities, this study investigates nontraditional student withdrawal from undergraduate accounting programmes. A nontraditional student is older than 24, or is a commuter or a part-time student, or combines some of these characteristics. Univariate and multivariate analyses of student dropout factors were performed. A logistic regression for full-time students indicates several significant determinants of student withdrawal: returning to school after working for some time, enrolment in a non-first choice programme, dissatisfaction with programme choice and courses, and low grade point average (GPA). For part-time students, low GPA is the main explanatory factor for student withdrawal. Other factors appear to be instrumental in withdrawal decisions, such as management of external resources (time and family responsibilities) for women. The results suggest that students would benefit from university support services to acquire learning strategies that improve perseverance. Lastly, in-class learning activities that help bolster grades could decrease student withdrawal rates.     

A rejoinder to the commentaries on Professor Chambers' 1999 paper the poverty of accounting discourse

The resource presented in this paper introduces and contextualises the teaching of Customer Lifetime Valuation (CLV) to management accounting students. CLV is a relatively recent innovation. It involves calculating the present value of expected net cash flows generated over the lifetime of an organisation's relationship with a particular customer/customer segment and using this information better to manage returns derived from a customer base. The Teaching Resource provides an introduction to the topic, suggested learning objectives, suitable student reading, and an innovative case (OzInsure case) facilitating students' technical competence and evaluation of CLV. Also included are suggested solutions and further background information situating the use and development of the teaching resource. Feedback received from peers and students indicates the utility of the Teaching Resource, and provides guidance as to its future development. More generally, this resource illustrates the feasibility of using instructors' research experiences to inform learning in management accounting.     

Relative Risk Aversion as an Arc Elasticity

Risk aversion is the central reason why individuals purchase insurance and undertake other forms of risk management. But deriving the Pratt–Arrow coefficient of relative risk aversion from a utility function requires familiarity with differential calculus—a level of mathematics beyond the prerequisites for most introductory risk management courses. Thus, students are not exposed to one of the most important and fundamental concepts in the field unless and until they take more advanced courses. The present article demonstrates that relative risk aversion can be obtained as an arc elasticity using only elementary mathematics. This approach highlights the relationship between risk aversion and the demand for insurance, and integrates concepts from the principles of economics course, helping to unify the business curriculum. Numerical examples are easily computed and graphed using electronic spreadsheets, providing students with a hands-on learning experience. For sufficiently small risks, the arc elasticity measure reduces to the Pratt–Arrow coefficient, providing a platform for discussing the difference between large-scale and small-scale risk aversion in upper-level courses.     

Strategic Market Entry Project

Successful risk management is critical to top level decision makers in any organization, involving fundamental strategic policy and planning to identify and allocate scarce resources to projects or activities that generate sustainable competitive advantage and maximize available long‐term growth opportunities, or even survival. This article describes a flexible group project wherein students of risk management and insurance (RMI) may gain additional exposure and experience with applications of fundamental strategic management theory in the context of their particular RMI major coursework. The Project may be a useful tool in helping RMI students further develop their research and presentation skills, as well as enhance critical strategic decision making; exposure to cultural, regional or globalization issues; application of fundamental strategic management concepts; and knowledge of current events. While this Project was developed primarily for RMI students, students across business disciplines also may benefit from participation.     

高校专职辅导员思想政治教育角色之实践性

高校专职辅导员,是普通高等学校中,以高校学生的思想、道德、学习、心理、生活、生涯规划和就业等方面的专门指导为职业的教师。其中,思想政治教育是我国高校学生教育与人才培养的重要内容和首要任务。在这项人才教育与培养工作中,高校专职辅导员是思想政治教育的践行者、实践者和研究者,承担着高校大学生思想政治教育实践和科研任务。     

Using Industry-Sponsored Game Nights to Educate About Risk and Insurance

As educators in the field of risk management and insurance, we see know- ledge of risk management and insurance as a core business function. However, some colleagues and students see insurance as cold-call sales or companies with a lot of money that continue to raise their prices. So we have to find ways to make our public aware of the usefulness of risk management and insurance in the business world and in private life and of the opportunities that having such knowledge presents to all business majors and business people. One method that is beginning to show dramatic improvements in at least our students' perceptions of the field and the major involves industry-sponsored game nights. While not an academic endeavor nor strictly risk management education, we believe the idea provides a useful tool for opening students' eyes to the need for knowledge of risk management and insurance and of the opportunities that are available in the insurance industry and its related fields. This article discusses the history of such an event at Appalachian State Univer- sity, the current status of the North Carolina Surplus Lines Association (NCSLA) event, and the benefits of the event.