Zillmerung und Rückkaufswert – ein kritischer Blick auf die rechtliche Bewertung

This article discusses the legal and economic correlation between the Zillmer-method and the surrender values in life insurance. The aim of this paper is to present the actuarial foundation as well as the economic needs in order to analyze critically in this context the discussion about the actual legal discussion with regard to consumer protection. As a first step the Zillmer-method, its functioning and the resulting economic benefits and consequences are presented. Subsequently, the surrender value and its historical development are studied to analyze the relationship between the Zillmer-method and surrender values. It also addresses the jurisprudence of the two High Courts, BGH and BVerfG, which manifests itself in recent years increasingly critical with regard to the Zillmer-method and surrender values. The paper results in the conclusion that it should be distinguished legally between the Zillmer-method and the surrender values more consequently than before since deregulation took place in 1994. In this respect the judgments cited require a critical evaluation. In a final step it is questioned whether the minimum guaranteed surrender values according to German law might be against European law.     

Naturgefahrenmodellierung in internen Risikomodellen – Unverzichtbares Rüstzeug für Strategieentscheidungen des Managements der Zukunft

Management requires internal models, which will usually span a period of several years (such as five), for analysing the financial situation of the insurance company and supporting strategic value- and risk-based company management. Catastrophe risks play an important role in risk management as a substantial share of the company’s entire risk capital is committed to natural catastrophes. So the article aims to compare two approaches in modelling storm loss in the context of applicability in strategic management. Concretely modelling deductibles in storm insurance is shown using the mathematical statistical approach. A case study will analyse various strategies and their effects on the insurance company’s single and multi-year risk-return position using example data where risk is dominated by catastrophes in order to give a concrete idea for the use of multi-period internal models in the context of management.     

Die EU-Sektoruntersuchung zu den Unternehmensversicherungen: Meistbegünstigungsklauseln in Rückversicherungsverträgen unter Berücksichtigung des Kartellrechts

In the EU-Sector-Inquiry on business insurance the European Commission drew attention to Best Terms and Conditions Clauses (BTC-Clauses) in Reinsurance contracts and found alleged violations against Art. 81 EGV. However, the Commission did not provide a legal classification in detail. The use of BTC-Clauses is mostly favoring cedants, a fact made obvious by the market participants’ reactions to the Commission’s final report. Nevertheless, the implementation of Solvency II standards may decline the use of BTC-Clauses (regarding the harmonization of premiums) because the cedent has to deposit different amounts of equity for his claims depending on the reinsurance company’s rating.     

Die Risikoübernahme von Versicherungsunternehmen: Eine empirische Analyse für Deutschland und Großbritannien

In this paper we analyze the risk resulting from an insurer’s investment policy. For this a hypothetical asset return rate is defined, based on which the German and British insurance market is analyzed. The study design allows an investigation of the investment risk in different countries or for different lines of business. The aim of the analysis is to detect general market trends in the investment policy and an analysis of effects of important changes over time on the investment risk of insurers. The questions analyzed in this paper are also of particular relevance beyond the background of current reform proposal for insurance regulation in Europe in the field of risk management and capital adequacy (Solvency II).     

Solvenzkapital für FLV unter Berücksichtigung von dynamischem Storno

Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt ein Verfahren zur Modellierung dynamischen Stornos im Rahmen eines partiellen internen Modells zur Bestimmung des Solvenzkapitals auf. Dabei wird das Stornoverhalten der Versicherungsnehmer von der Entwicklung des Kapitalmarktes und somit des Fondswertes einer fondsgebundenen Lebensversicherung beeinflusst. Das partielle interne Modell erm?glicht es dem Versicherungsunternehmen stochastische Bewertungen durchzuführen, ohne dabei auf die Vorteile der Standardformel zur Bestimmung des Solvenzkapitalbedarfs zu verzichten. Es konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass die Berücksichtigung dynamischer Stornorisiken unter bestimmten Annahmen erhebliche Auswirkungen auf die H?he des Solvenzkapitalbedarfs haben kann. Eine genaue Untersuchung des tats?chlichen Stornoverhaltens der Versicherungsnehmer erscheint vor dem Hintergrund dieser Ergebnisse notwendig.     

Gendiagnostikgesetz und Versicherung: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit

With the new German Gene Diagnostic Act (Gendiagnostikgesetz) the legislator aims at improving the protection of insurance applicants by prohibiting private insurers from collecting and using genetic information. However, the analysis of the new provisions shows that the provisions pertaining to insurance neither provide a comprehensive protection against genetic discrimination of insurance applicants and insured nor do they protect their right of gene-informational self-determination. Cuts of insurance benefits of the insured in private health insurance as well as incoherent disclosure obligations for insurance applicants unconstitutionally limit the rights of affected people as compared to the time before the Gene Diagnostic Act came into force. In summary, the new Gene Diagnostic Act does not only fail to meet its claims and thus falls short of the expectations, but also, due to numerous unclear provisions, poses a series of grave problems for insurance applicants, privately insured and private insurers.     

Einflussfaktoren für betrügerisches Verhalten von Versicherungsnehmern: erste experimentelle Befunde

Theoretical research examining how to fight insurance fraud is usually based on the assumption that individuals behave purely selfish and maximize expected utility from monetary payoffs. Therefore, this research does not take into account that insurance fraud constitutes an illegal behavior that some individuals never commit, e.g., due to ethical reasons. This article presents experimental findings on factors that influence fraudulent behavior of infrequent offenders. The results show that some subjects never commit fraud in the experiment, although it would have been financially profitable. Deductible contracts lead to an increase of fraudulent behavior. In contrast, information regarding other subjects’ claiming behavior does not have any significant impact on the probability to commit fraud. Therefore, in our experiment social interaction only induces minor changes in behavior.     

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.     

Zur Modellierung von Rückversicherungsverträgen in der dynamischen Finanzanalyse

In this paper we study the influence of Gaussian dependencies on the payoff of reinsurance contracts and the resulting effects on a non-life insurer's risk and return profile. To achieve this, we integrate different Gaussian dependencies and reinsurance contracts in a dynamic financial analysis (DFA) framework and conduct numerical tests within a simulation study. Depending on the reinsurance contract and the dependency employed, we find substantial differences in risk assessment for the ruin probability and for the expected policyholder deficit. The results have important implications for regulators and rating agencies that use these risk measures as a foundation for capital standards and ratings. Our results extend the findings of a recent working paper by Eling and Toplek (2008) with a detailed analysis of Gaussian dependencies under different reinsurance contracts.     

Bestimmung von Deckungsgrenzen bei nicht-proportionalen Rückversicherungsverträgen: Selbstbehalte in Abhängigkeit von Risikoeinstellungen

Risk measures and accordingly risk measurement increasingly gains in importance in economics. Over the past years risk measures were already used at credit and shareholders' equity depositations due to Basel II regulations. The article now introduces a hybrid decision modell and applies it to the reinsurance business. The modell uses a convex combination of risk measures and therewith enables the modelling of risk attitudes. First of all, by doing that, it can be shown, which risk attitude leads to the acceptance of a reinsurance contract, and secondly which deductible an insurer is prepared to undertake. Consequently it is possible to determine the risk attitudes of insurers. In turn, on knowledge of risk attitudes, it becomes possible to generate recommendations of the extent of the deductible at similar reinsurance contracts.     

AVB und Beratungspflichten – Markt – und Produktdisposition

Although insurers over services, they are no advisers/consultants. Nevertheless, the jurisdiction has already established an pre-contractual insurers duty to l advise insureds under the validity of the old VVG according to general civil law rules. Article 6 VVG standardizes such duties for the first time and aims to guarantee customers proper advice/consultancy particularly before the contract ends to prevent lapses in coverage. Therewith some considerable questions referring to concurrent laws concerning the law of the general terms and conditions, which aim to guarantee reliable and transparent information for customers in a quite similar way, arise. The author discusses this problem of concurrent laws and develops criteria which show which law is applicable on what occasion. As a result, a possibly contradictory pre-contractual double review is avoided.     

Die stochastische Modellierung von Großschäden für den Einsatz in internen Risikomodellen der Schadenversicherung

Along with individual corporate management and regulatory matters for instance within EU regime Solvency II, Internal Risk Models are very important for major general insurance companies. Of crucial importance in building these internal models, is the stochastic modelling of large claims and in particular, the selection and parameterization of suitable probability distributions for the amount and number of claims based on empirical data. To this end, in practice, a visually-based methodology is more appropriate and workable than strict mathematical approaches. Based on a practical case study, this paper provides some insight into a visually-based methodology for internal risk models.