IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/quantf/v16y2016i6p905-928.html

Regression-based Monte Carlo methods for stochastic control models: variable annuities with lifelong guarantees

Author

Listed:
  • Yao Tung Huang
  • Yue Kuen Kwok

Abstract

We present regression-based Monte Carlo simulation algorithm for solving the stochastic control models associated with pricing and hedging of the guaranteed lifelong withdrawal benefit (GLWB) in variable annuities, where the dynamics of the underlying fund value is assumed to evolve according to the stochastic volatility model. The GLWB offers a lifelong withdrawal benefit, even when the policy account value becomes zero, while the policyholder remains alive. Upon death, the remaining account value will be paid to the beneficiary as a death benefit. The bang-bang control strategy analysed under the assumption of maximization of the policyholder’s expected cash flow reduces the strategy space of optimal withdrawal policies to three choices: zero withdrawal, withdrawal at the contractual amount or complete surrender. The impact on the GLWB value under various withdrawal behaviours of the policyholder is examined. We also analyse the pricing properties of GLWB subject to different model parameter values and structural features.

Suggested Citation

  • Yao Tung Huang & Yue Kuen Kwok, 2016. "Regression-based Monte Carlo methods for stochastic control models: variable annuities with lifelong guarantees," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 905-928, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:quantf:v:16:y:2016:i:6:p:905-928
    DOI: 10.1080/14697688.2015.1088962
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14697688.2015.1088962
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14697688.2015.1088962?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 2001. "Valuing American Options by Simulation: A Simple Least-Squares Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 113-147.
    2. Eric Fournié & Jean-Michel Lasry & Pierre-Louis Lions & Jérôme Lebuchoux, 2001. "Applications of Malliavin calculus to Monte-Carlo methods in finance. II," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 201-236.
    3. Rolf Poulsen & Klaus Reiner Schenk-Hoppe & Christian-Oliver Ewald, 2009. "Risk minimization in stochastic volatility models: model risk and empirical performance," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(6), pages 693-704.
    4. Milevsky, Moshe A. & Salisbury, Thomas S., 2006. "Financial valuation of guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 21-38, February.
    5. Bacinello, Anna Rita & Millossovich, Pietro & Olivieri, Annamaria & Pitacco, Ermanno, 2011. "Variable annuities: A unifying valuation approach," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 285-297.
    6. Parsiad Azimzadeh & Peter A. Forsyth, 2015. "The existence of optimal bang-bang controls for GMxB contracts," Papers 1502.05743, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2026.
    7. Peter Christoffersen & Kris Jacobs & Karim Mimouni, 2010. "Volatility Dynamics for the S&P500: Evidence from Realized Volatility, Daily Returns, and Option Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(8), pages 3141-3189, August.
    8. Huang, Yao Tung & Kwok, Yue Kuen, 2014. "Analysis of optimal dynamic withdrawal policies in withdrawal guarantee products," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 19-43.
    9. Mark Broadie & Özgür Kaya, 2006. "Exact Simulation of Stochastic Volatility and Other Affine Jump Diffusion Processes," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 217-231, April.
    10. Heston, Steven L, 1993. "A Closed-Form Solution for Options with Stochastic Volatility with Applications to Bond and Currency Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 327-343.
    11. Philip Protter & Emmanuelle Clément & Damien Lamberton, 2002. "An analysis of a least squares regression method for American option pricing," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 449-471.
    12. Chen, Z. & Vetzal, K. & Forsyth, P.A., 2008. "The effect of modelling parameters on the value of GMWB guarantees," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 165-173, August.
    13. David Hobson, 2010. "Comparison results for stochastic volatility models via coupling," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 129-152, January.
    14. Luciano, Elisa & Regis, Luca & Vigna, Elena, 2012. "Delta–Gamma hedging of mortality and interest rate risk," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 402-412.
    15. Roger Lord & Remmert Koekkoek & Dick Van Dijk, 2010. "A comparison of biased simulation schemes for stochastic volatility models," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 177-194.
    16. Anna Rita Bacinello & Enrico Biffis & Pietro Millossovich, 2010. "Regression-based algorithms for life insurance contracts with surrender guarantees," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(9), pages 1077-1090.
    17. Jan Baldeaux, 2012. "Exact Simulation Of The 3/2 Model," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(05), pages 1-13.
    18. Forsyth, Peter & Vetzal, Kenneth, 2014. "An optimal stochastic control framework for determining the cost of hedging of variable annuities," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 29-53.
    19. Eric Fournié & Jean-Michel Lasry & Pierre-Louis Lions & Jérôme Lebuchoux & Nizar Touzi, 1999. "Applications of Malliavin calculus to Monte Carlo methods in finance," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 391-412.
    20. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 2001. "Valuing American Options by Simulation: A Simple Least-Squares Approach," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt43n1k4jb, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    21. Min Dai & Yue Kuen Kwok & Jianping Zong, 2008. "Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit In Variable Annuities," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 595-611, October.
    22. Bauer, Daniel & Kling, Alexander & Russ, Jochen, 2008. "A Universal Pricing Framework for Guaranteed Minimum Benefits in Variable Annuities 1," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 621-651, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pavel V. Shevchenko & Xiaolin Luo, 2016. "A Unified Pricing of Variable Annuity Guarantees under the Optimal Stochastic Control Framework," Risks, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-31, July.
    2. Bacinello, Anna Rita & Maggistro, Rosario & Zoccolan, Ivan, 2024. "Risk-neutral valuation of GLWB riders in variable annuities," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-14.
    3. Claudio Fontana & Francesco Rotondi, 2022. "Valuation of general GMWB annuities in a low interest rate environment," Papers 2208.10183, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    4. Shevchenko, Pavel V. & Luo, Xiaolin, 2017. "Valuation of variable annuities with Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit under stochastic interest rate," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 104-117.
    5. Pavel V. Shevchenko & Xiaolin Luo, 2016. "A unified pricing of variable annuity guarantees under the optimal stochastic control framework," Papers 1605.00339, arXiv.org.
    6. Fontana, Claudio & Rotondi, Francesco, 2023. "Valuation of general GMWB annuities in a low interest rate environment," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 142-167.
    7. Ludovic Goudenege & Andrea Molent & Antonino Zanette, 2019. "Pricing and hedging GMWB in the Heston and in the Black–Scholes with stochastic interest rate models," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 217-248, February.
    8. Goudenège, Ludovic & Molent, Andrea & Zanette, Antonino, 2016. "Pricing and hedging GLWB in the Heston and in the Black–Scholes with stochastic interest rate models," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 38-57.
    9. Pavel V. Shevchenko & Xiaolin Luo, 2016. "Valuation of Variable Annuities with Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit under Stochastic Interest Rate," Papers 1602.03238, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2017.
    10. Parsiad Azimzadeh & Peter A. Forsyth, 2015. "The existence of optimal bang-bang controls for GMxB contracts," Papers 1502.05743, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2026.
    11. Yaowen Lu & Duy-Minh Dang, 2023. "A semi-Lagrangian $\epsilon$-monotone Fourier method for continuous withdrawal GMWBs under jump-diffusion with stochastic interest rate," Papers 2310.00606, arXiv.org.
    12. Ludovic Goudenege & Andrea Molent & Antonino Zanette, 2015. "Pricing and Hedging GLWB in the Heston and in the Black-Scholes with Stochastic Interest Rate Models," Papers 1509.02686, arXiv.org.
    13. Xiaolin Luo & Pavel V. Shevchenko, 2015. "Valuation of capital protection options," Papers 1508.00668, arXiv.org, revised May 2017.
    14. Luo, Xiaolin & Shevchenko, Pavel V., 2015. "Valuation of variable annuities with guaranteed minimum withdrawal and death benefits via stochastic control optimization," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 5-15.
    15. Jin Sun & Pavel V. Shevchenko & Man Chung Fung, 2018. "The Impact of Management Fees on the Pricing of Variable Annuity Guarantees," Risks, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-20, September.
    16. Feng, Runhuan & Jing, Xiaochen & Ng, Kenneth Tsz Hin, 2025. "Optimal investment-withdrawal strategy for variable annuities under a performance fee structure," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    17. Zhiyi Shen & Chengguo Weng, 2019. "A Backward Simulation Method for Stochastic Optimal Control Problems," Papers 1901.06715, arXiv.org.
    18. Xiaolin Luo & Pavel Shevchenko, 2014. "Fast Numerical Method for Pricing of Variable Annuities with Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit under Optimal Withdrawal Strategy," Papers 1410.8609, arXiv.org.
    19. Hejazi, Seyed Amir & Jackson, Kenneth R., 2016. "A neural network approach to efficient valuation of large portfolios of variable annuities," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 169-181.
    20. Jennifer Alonso-Garcia & Len Patrick Dominic M. Garces & Jonathan Ziveyi, 2025. "Variable annuities: A closer look at ratchet guarantees, hybrid contract designs, and taxation," Papers 2507.07358, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2026.

    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:taf:quantf:v:16:y:2016:i:6:p:905-928. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RQUF20 .

    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.