IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/gpprii/v38y2013i2p354-375.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Maximum Technical Interest Rates in Life Insurance in Europe and the United States: An Overview and Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Eling

    (Institute of Insurance Economics, University of St.Gallen, Kirchlistrasse 2, St.Gallen 9010, Switzerland.)

  • Stefan Holder

    (DFG Research Training Group 1100, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstrasse 22, 89081 Ulm, Germany.)

Abstract

We compare the regulatory environment for the maximum technical interest rate of life insurance contracts in four European countries and the United States. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the maximum rate is driven by a long-term rolling average of government bond yields and is adjusted by the regulator. In the U.S., corporate bond yields are used and the regulator is not directly involved in setting the maximum rate. The regime implemented in the United Kingdom is unique: instead of a rules-based “one-size-fits-all” approach, the maximum rate is determined by a company-specific principle-based method. We provide a comparative analysis of the different systems and conduct a numerical analysis to investigate how the maximum rate will develop under predefined interest rate scenarios. The discussion is highly relevant in light of Solvency II, a regime that may fundamentally change regulation of the maximum technical interest rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Eling & Stefan Holder, 2013. "Maximum Technical Interest Rates in Life Insurance in Europe and the United States: An Overview and Comparison," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 38(2), pages 354-375, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:38:y:2013:i:2:p:354-375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v38/n2/pdf/gpp201241a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v38/n2/full/gpp201241a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Axel Möhlmann, 2021. "Interest rate risk of life insurers: Evidence from accounting data," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 587-612, June.
    2. Anna Rita Bacinello & An Chen & Thorsten Sehner & Pietro Millossovich, 2021. "On the Market-Consistent Valuation of Participating Life Insurance Heterogeneous Contracts under Longevity Risk," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Grochola, Nicolaus & Browne, Mark Joseph & Gründl, Helmut & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2021. "Exploring the market risk profiles of U.S. and European life insurers," ICIR Working Paper Series 39/21, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    4. Eling, Martin & Holder, Stefan, 2013. "The value of interest rate guarantees in participating life insurance contracts: Status quo and alternative product design," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 491-503.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:38:y:2013:i:2:p:354-375. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.