Optimal Insurance With Costly Internal Capital

We introduce costly internal capital into a standard insurance model, in which a risk‐averse policyholder buys insurance from a risk‐neutral insurer with limited liability. The unique optimal contract and internal capital lead to a strictly positive probability for insurer default. Some risks are uninsurable in that the insurer chooses not to provide insurance against such risks. An increase in the cost of capital may lead to a higher optimal amount of internal capital. The results extend to multiple policyholders in a symmetric setting. Our extension of the classical model to include costly internal capital provides a fruitful approach to many real world insurance markets.     

Insurance and Endogenous Bankruptcy Risk: When is it Rational to Choose Gambling,Insurance, and Potential Bankruptcy?

We examine the coexistence of insurance and gambling in the context of limited liability. We develop a model where actuarially fair insurance is available to a risk-averse decision maker for a liability risk with non-bankrupting severity. The remaining wealth may be invested in a zero expected value risky project (i.e., gambled). The risk of bankruptcy is endogenous since either fully insuring or forgoing the project will guarantee solvency. We show that, for a range of parameters, it is optimal to both insure and gamble. The amounts insured and invested are chosen to create the potential for bankruptcy. Our results are robust to the cases where the risky project can cause bankruptcy without a liability loss and where the risky project’s expected return is nonzero.     

To Hedge or Not to Hedge: Managing Demographic Risk in Life Insurance Companies

Demographic risk, i.e., the risk that life tables change in a nondeterministic way, is a serious threat to the financial stability of an insurance company having underwritten life insurance and annuity business. The inverse influence of changes in mortality laws on the market value of life insurance and annuity liabilities creates natural hedging opportunities. Within a realistically calibrated shareholder value (SHV) maximization framework, we analyze the implications of demographic risk on the optimal risk management mix (equity capital, asset allocation, and product policy) for a limited liability insurance company operating in a market with insolvency‐averse insurance buyers. Our results show that the utilization of natural hedging is optimal only if equity is scarce. Otherwise, hedging can even destroy SHV. A sensitivity analysis shows that a misspecification of demographic risk has severe consequences for both the insurer and the insured. This result highlights the importance of further research in the field of demographic risk.     

Ausweitung der Arzthaftung als Einfallstor für neue Formen der Arzthaftpflichtversicherung?

In a recent case, the Austrian Supreme Court remarkably extended medical liability of a gynaecologist for inadequate information about a possible mental handicap of an unborn child. On this occasion, the paper outlines the modified risk exposure of physicians and analyses a possible impact of case-law on the availability and affordability of liability insurance. It raises the question whether a liability crisis could be possible in Austria and briefly explains the underlying U.S. legal and regulatory framework that led to liability crises in the past. In the U.S., alternative risk transfer by means of Risk Retention Groups (RRGs) has been crucial in improving availability and affordability of liability insurance and to rein in liability crises. The Austrian legal and regulatory framework as it stands now would allow for self insurance solutions like Risk Retention Groups but the economic necessity for alternative solutions to traditional insurance schemes seems to be lacking.     

Insurance demand in the presence of loss-dependent background risk

We analyze insurance demand when insurable losses come with an uninsurable zero-mean background risk that increases in the loss size. If the individual is risk vulnerable, loss-dependent background risk triggers a precautionary insurance motive and increases optimal insurance demand. Prudence alone is sufficient for insurance demand to increase in two cases: the case of fair insurance and the case where the smallest possible loss exceeds a certain threshold value (referred to as the large loss case). We derive conditions under which insurance demand increases or decreases in initial wealth. In the large loss case, prudence determines whether changes in the background risk lead to more insurance demand. We generalize this result to arbitrary loss distributions and find conditions based on decreasing third-degree Ross risk aversion, Arrow–Pratt risk aversion, and Arrow–Pratt temperance.     

论注册会计师责任保险制度

注册会计师责任保险对于提高会计师事务所的风险抵御能力和保护投资者利益两方面都具有重要意义.在我国,注册会计师责任保险尚处于起步阶段,无论是需求还是供给都存在不足.但随着我国虚假陈述民事诉讼制度的不断完善,注册会计师的法律诉讼风险将大大提高.为了降低事务所的执业风险、保护受到虚假陈述侵害的投资者利益,我国应当借鉴其他国家和地区的经验,完善我国的注册会计师责任保险制度,并建立相关的配套措施,促进注册会计师责任保险制度的发展.     

Die ökonomische Funktion von Haftungsregeln bei Risikoaversion und Haftpflichtversicherungsmöglichkeiten

Most of the literature on the economic analysis of liability law reduces the economic importance of liability regulations to their prevention or incentive function. This is due to the premise of risk neutral decision behavior or to the assumption of ?costless“ insurance that is very often used in this context. In this paper the case of risk neutrality is discussed briefly. Then the relevance of risk aversion is explained, and results are presented from an analysis which integrates risk averse behavior and employs a more adequate modeling of the insurance supply, such that the risk allocation function of liability rules is given emphasis in addition to the aspect of loss prevention. An important result is that for large numbers of potential victims an ideal solution can be approximated by a negligence rule. This insight is particularly interesting in light of the fact that liability risks which are characterized by large numbers of victims usually are regulated by strict liability.     

赋予第三者直接请求权与责任保险的风险管控

新《保险法》明确了责任保险中第三者对保险人的直接请求权,受限于中国保险业的发展现状及法律普及程度,第三者直接请求权的赋予将导致责任保险实务中出现新的纠纷,给保险公司带来未知的经营风险。为保证保险公司的稳定经营,有必要加强对诉讼风险的防范,扩大强制责任保险的承保面,加强与新闻媒体及公众的沟通等,以确立对保险公司的利益保护,并以之作为责任保险稳定经营的制度基础。     

论环境责任保险中政府的作用

环境的负外部性是造成环境污染的重要原因,环境责任保险是通过责任风险社会化解决环境污染损害赔偿问题的有效方式之一。但在现阶段,要发展环境责任保险只能依靠政府强制的力量,本文结合我国现状,分析了政府在推动环境责任保险发展中应发挥的作用。     

Die Bedeutung der Haftpflichtversicherung für die Annahme konkludenter Haftungsausschlüsse

The article covers the practically important question under which circumstances the construction of implied exclusions of liability is influenced by the liability insurance of the injuring party. It is focused on the two practically most relevant case groups in which the jurisdiction considers implied exclusions of liability possible (liability in accommodation agreements and liability in sports). The author firstly shows that under tort law, the consideration of liability insurance is both possible and necessary. Secondly, the author demonstrates that possible objections based in insurance law (such as the principle of separation) are not convincing. This is not limited to compulsory insurances, but applies to all types of liability insurances.     

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."     

董事高管责任保险与企业财务困境风险——基于A股上市公司的经验证据

以2006-2015年A股上市公司为样本,检验董事高管责任保险对企业财务困境风险的影响及其作用机制。研究发现：购买董事高管责任保险有助于降低企业的财务困境风险,保险公司的监督作用是企业财务困境风险降低的主要原因;高质量的内部控制或较多的分析师跟踪能减弱董事高管责任保险对企业财务困境风险的治理效用;产权性质则未产生显著的影响。     

Characterizations of optimal reinsurance treaties: a cost-benefit approach

This article investigates optimal reinsurance treaties minimizing an insurer’s risk-adjusted liability, which encompasses a risk margin quantified by distortion risk measures. Via the introduction of a transparent cost-benefit argument, we extend the results in Cui et al. [Cui, W., Yang, J. & Wu, L. (2013). Optimal reinsurance minimizing the distortion risk measure under general reinsurance premium principles. Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 53, 74–85] and provide full characterizations on the set of optimal reinsurance treaties within the class of non-decreasing, 1-Lipschitz functions. Unlike conventional studies, our results address the issue of (non-)uniqueness of optimal solutions and indicate that ceded loss functions beyond the traditional insurance layers can be optimal in some cases. The usefulness of our novel cost-benefit approach is further demonstrated by readily solving the dual problem of minimizing the reinsurance premium while maintaining the risk-adjusted liability below a fixed tolerance level.     

金融创新如何缓解信任品市场失灵?——中国食品安全责任强制保险的自然实验

信任品市场(如食品、医药等)存在的问题一直困扰着中国和世界很多国家。关于产品和服务质量的信息不对称(道德风险和逆向选择)会导致信任品市场失灵。缓解信任品市场失灵,一种常见的解决方案是政府监管;而经济学家认为更加基于市场的解决方案(例如强制责任保险等金融创新)可能更为有效。在理论上,强制责任保险有两种相反的效应:保险公司的监督减少了道德风险 vs. 保险加剧了企业的道德风险,但一直亟待实证检验。幸运的是,中国食品安全责任强制保险的改革实验走在了世界的前列。本文利用了中国在不同地区、不同时间推行的这个自然实验,通过双重差分的方法识别出责任保险对于信任品市场的因果效应。本文的研究发现,强制责任保险能显著降低食品安全事故发生概率。这表明政府强制推行的金融创新可以成为信任品市场失灵的一种有效的替代性解决方案。     

Strategic Demand for Insurance

We focus on the corporate demand for insurance under duopoly. We consider the case in which firms purchase insurance in order to enhance their competitiveness. We show that a higher level of corporate insurance makes a firm more aggressive and its competitor less aggressive in the output market (strategic effect). The optimal coverage of insurance is determined by comparing the strategic effect of insurance and the cost of insurance. The optimal coverage is positive if the strategic effect is greater than the cost of insurance. An interesting implication is that a risk‐neutral firm may purchase actuarially unfair insurance. The main strategic effect of insurance comes from the fact that firms purchase insurance before they produce outputs. Insurance makes firms more aggressive due to the limited risk costs of firms.     

Corporate Insurance Strategy: The Case of British Petroleum

The authors provide a fundamental rethinking of how corporations should evaluate various kinds of risks and risk management solutions—a rethinking that leads to a major shift in British Petroleum's approach to insuring property and casualty losses, product liability suits, and other insurable events. Conventional corporate practice—and until the early 1990s (when this article was written) the longstanding policy of BP and most large oil companies—was to insure against large losses while self‐insuring against smaller ones. In this article, the authors explain why BP has chosen to go against the conventional wisdom and instead buy insurance for mainly smaller losses while self‐insuring larger ones. The BP decision came down to factors affecting the market supply of insurance as well as the corporate demand for it. On the demand side, the authors demonstrate that the primary source of demand for insurance by large public companies is not, as standard insurance textbooks assume, to transfer risk away from the corporation's owners. Because corporate stockholders and bondholders effectively manage the effects of such risks by diversifying their own portfolios, the corporate demand for insurance in BP's case stems from the insurers' comparative advantage in evaluating and monitoring BP's smaller risks and in processing claims. On the supply side, the authors explain why the capacity of insurance companies and markets to underwrite very large or highly specialized exposures—when compared to the industry expertise and financial resources of companies like BP—is quite limited, and likely to remain so. Since premiums would be experience‐rated and prior years' losses simply rolled into the following years' premiums, there would be no effective transfer of risk, and so no gain to BP from buying insurance.     

保险对经济增长的贡献研究——基于中国实证

保险业在经济中的重要性已得到逐步的认识,但相关研究还是较少。保险作为金融中介,通过强大的筹资功能,为社会创造价值。本文运用两个理论模型分别论证了财产保险为经济提供了分担机制,寿险为经济发展提供了更多长期资本,且两类保险对技术进步也有促进作用,保险制度直接与间接地提高了社会产量,推动了经济增长。以我国为实证,结果表明,人寿保险和财产保险对GDP增长有贡献作用。     

工伤保险之专业自保公司运用研究

工伤保险对于美国企业是一项很大的负担,专业自保公司是美国企业风险管理的创新性工具,为企业节省了巨额保费,并增加企业的价值。我国的工伤保险体制是社会保险与雇主责任保险相结合的保险体制,随着人们生活水平的提高、法律意识的增强、物价水平的上升,责任保险的经济赔偿金额将越来越高。我国企业建立专业自保公司承保超额的工伤保险,会增强大型企业的风险管理水平,并从真正意义上使工伤保险做到预防、补偿和康复相结合。     

Optimal insurance with background risk: An analysis of general dependence structures

Finance and Stochastics - In this paper, we consider an optimal insurance problem from the perspective of a risk-averse individual who faces an insurable risk as well as some background risk and...     

环境污染责任保险对企业债务融资成本的影响研究

在欧美发达经济体中,环境污染责任保险在实现经济与环境可持续发展中发挥着重要作用.环境污染责任保险在中国尚处于推广阶段,企业投保意愿不强,参保率较低,急需提高企业对环境污染责任保险的价值认同.环境污染责任保险是否具有资金融通效应,是企业主动接纳该类保险的重要驱动因素.为检验环境污染责任保险能否为企业带来资金融通的价值,文...