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Optimal Investment Strategies for Insurance Companies when Capital Requirements are Imposed by a Standard Formula*

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  • Katharina Fischer

    (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Insurance and Regulation, International Center for Insurance Regulation, Goethe University Frankfurt, Grüneburgplatz 1, Frankfurt/Main 60323, Germany)

  • Sebastian Schlütter

    (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Insurance and Regulation, International Center for Insurance Regulation, Goethe University Frankfurt, Grüneburgplatz 1, Frankfurt/Main 60323, Germany)

Abstract

The Solvency II standard formula employs an approximate value-at-risk approach to define risk-based capital requirements. This paper investigates how the standard formula’s stock risk calibration influences the equity position and investment strategy of a shareholder-value-maximising insurer with limited liability. The capital requirement for stock risks is determined by multiplying a regulation-defined stock risk parameter by the value of the insurer’s stock portfolio. Intuitively, a higher stock risk parameter should reduce risky investments as well as insolvency risk. However, we find that the default probability does not necessarily decrease when reducing the investment risk (by increasing the stock risk parameter). We also find that, depending on the precise interaction between assets and liabilities, some insurers will invest conservatively, whereas others will prefer a very risky investment strategy, and a slight change of the stock risk parameter may lead from a conservative to a high-risk asset allocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharina Fischer & Sebastian Schlütter, 2015. "Optimal Investment Strategies for Insurance Companies when Capital Requirements are Imposed by a Standard Formula*," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 40(1), pages 15-40, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:genrir:v:40:y:2015:i:1:p:15-40
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Braun & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2018. "Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital Under Solvency II: Implications for the Asset Management of Insurance Companies," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(3), pages 456-472, July.
    2. Sebastian Schlütter, 2019. "Optimal taxation in non-life insurance markets," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 44(1), pages 1-26, March.
    3. Sebastian Schlütter, 2019. "Optimal taxation in non-life insurance markets," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 44(1), pages 1-26, March.
    4. Eckert, Johanna & Gatzert, Nadine, 2018. "Risk- and value-based management for non-life insurers under solvency constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 266(2), pages 761-774.
    5. Roy Kouwenberg, 2018. "Strategic asset allocation for insurers under Solvency II," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(7), pages 447-459, December.
    6. Schlütter, Sebastian & Fianu, Emmanuel Senyo & Gründl, Helmut, 2022. "Responsible investments in life insurers' optimal portfolios under solvency constraints," ICIR Working Paper Series 45/22, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    7. Hangsuck Lee & Seongjoo Song & Gaeun Lee, 2023. "Insurance guaranty premiums and exchange options," Mathematics and Financial Economics, Springer, volume 17, number 3, June.
    8. Liu, Shuyan & Jia, Ruo & Zhao, Yulong & Sun, Qixiang, 2019. "Global consistent or market-oriented? A quantitative assessment of RBC standards, solvency II, and C-ROSS," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    9. Paulusch, Joachim & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2021. "Sensitivity-implied tail-correlation matrices," ICIR Working Paper Series 33/19, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR), revised 2021.
    10. Alexander Braun & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2017. "Portfolio Optimization Under Solvency II: Implicit Constraints Imposed by the Market Risk Standard Formula," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 84(1), pages 177-207, March.
    11. Aigner, Philipp, 2023. "Identifying scenarios for the own risk and solvency assessment of insurance companies," ICIR Working Paper Series 48/23, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    12. Marcos Escobar & Paul Kriebel & Markus Wahl & Rudi Zagst, 2019. "Portfolio optimization under Solvency II," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 281(1), pages 193-227, October.

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