IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hum/wpaper/sfb649dp2009-015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stochastic Mortality, Macroeconomic Risks, and Life Insurer Solvency

Author

Listed:
  • Katja Hanewald
  • Thomas Post
  • Helmut Gründl

Abstract

Motivated by a recent demographic study establishing a link between macroeconomic fluctuations and the mortality index kt in the Lee-Carter model, we assess the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on the solvency of a life insurance company. Liabilities in our stochastic simulation framework are driven by a GDP-linked variant of the Lee-Carter mortality model. Furthermore, interest rates and stock prices are allowed to react to changes in GDP, which itself is modeled as a stochastic process. Our results show that insolvency probabilities are significantly higher when the reaction of mortality rates to changes in GDP is incorporated.

Suggested Citation

  • Katja Hanewald & Thomas Post & Helmut Gründl, 2009. "Stochastic Mortality, Macroeconomic Risks, and Life Insurer Solvency," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2009-015, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2009-015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/papers/pdf/SFB649DP2009-015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dowd, Kevin & Cairns, Andrew J.G. & Blake, David, 2006. "Mortality-dependent financial risk measures," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 427-440, June.
    2. Bauer Daniel & Weber Frederik, 2008. "Assessing Investment and Longevity Risks within Immediate Annuities," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-24, September.
    3. Ronald Lee & Timothy Miller, 2001. "Evaluating the performance of the lee-carter method for forecasting mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(4), pages 537-549, November.
    4. Booth, Heather, 2006. "Demographic forecasting: 1980 to 2005 in review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 547-581.
    5. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2006. "Deaths rise in good economic times: Evidence from the OECD," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 298-316, December.
    6. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2000. "Are Recessions Good for Your Health?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 617-650.
    7. Heather Booth & Rob Hyndman & Leonie Tickle & Piet de Jong, 2006. "Lee-Carter mortality forecasting: a multi-country comparison of variants and extensions," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 15(9), pages 289-310.
    8. Debón, A. & Montes, F. & Puig, F., 2008. "Modelling and forecasting mortality in Spain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(3), pages 624-637, September.
    9. Ronald Lee, 2000. "The Lee-Carter Method for Forecasting Mortality, with Various Extensions and Applications," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 80-91.
    10. Changki Kim, 2005. "Modeling Surrender and Lapse Rates With Economic Variables," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 56-70.
    11. Susanne Kruse & Matthias Meitner & Michael Schroder, 2005. "On the pricing of GDP-linked financial products," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(16), pages 1125-1133.
    12. Daniëls, Tijmen R. & Jager, Henk & Klaassen, Franc, 2011. "Currency crises with the threat of an interest rate defence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 14-24, September.
    13. Gustavo Ferro, 2009. "One Possible Life Insurance Market Response to Ageing," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 34(1), pages 119-136, January.
    14. Jennifer L. Wang & H.C. Huang & Sharon S. Yang & Jeffrey T. Tsai, 2010. "An Optimal Product Mix for Hedging Longevity Risk in Life Insurance Companies: The Immunization Theory Approach," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 473-497, June.
    15. Kling, Alexander & Richter, Andreas & Ru[ss], Jochen, 2007. "The interaction of guarantees, surplus distribution, and asset allocation in with-profit life insurance policies," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 164-178, January.
    16. Booth, H. & Tickle, L., 2008. "Mortality Modelling and Forecasting: a Review of Methods," Annals of Actuarial Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1-2), pages 3-43, September.
    17. Helmut Gründl & Thomas Post & Roman N. Schulze, 2006. "To Hedge or Not to Hedge: Managing Demographic Risk in Life Insurance Companies," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 73(1), pages 19-41, March.
    18. Samuel Cox & Yijia Lin, 2007. "Natural Hedging of Life and Annuity Mortality Risks," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15.
    19. Hári, Norbert & De Waegenaere, Anja & Melenberg, Bertrand & Nijman, Theo E., 2008. "Estimating the term structure of mortality," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 492-504, April.
    20. Shripad Tuljapurkar & Nan Li & Carl Boe, 2000. "A universal pattern of mortality decline in the G7 countries," Nature, Nature, vol. 405(6788), pages 789-792, June.
    21. Wolfgang H. Reichmuth & Samad Sarferaz, 2008. "The Influence of the Business Cycle on Mortality," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-059, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    22. José Tapia granados, 2008. "Macroeconomic fluctuations and mortality in postwar Japan," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(2), pages 323-343, May.
    23. Hári, Norbert & De Waegenaere, Anja & Melenberg, Bertrand & Nijman, Theo E., 2008. "Longevity risk in portfolios of pension annuities," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 505-519, April.
    24. Tapia Granados, José A. & Ionides, Edward L., 2008. "The reversal of the relation between economic growth and health progress: Sweden in the 19th and 20th centuries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 544-563, May.
    25. Katja Hanewald, 2011. "Explaining Mortality Dynamics," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 290-314.
    26. Renshaw, A.E. & Haberman, S., 2006. "A cohort-based extension to the Lee-Carter model for mortality reduction factors," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 556-570, June.
    27. Neumayer, Eric, 2004. "Recessions lower (some) mortality rates:: evidence from Germany," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 1037-1047, March.
    28. Katja Hanewald, 2008. "Beyond the business cycle - factors driving aggregate mortality rates," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-031, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    29. Brouhns, Natacha & Denuit, Michel & Vermunt, Jeroen K., 2002. "A Poisson log-bilinear regression approach to the construction of projected lifetables," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 373-393, December.
    30. Hong Mao & Krzysztof M Ostaszewski & Yuling Wang, 2008. "Risk Analysis of Mortality Improvement: The Case of Chinese Annuity Markets," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 33(2), pages 234-249, April.
    31. Tsai, Jeffrey T. & Wang, Jennifer L. & Tzeng, Larry Y., 2010. "On the optimal product mix in life insurance companies using conditional value at risk," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 235-241, February.
    32. Mark Browne & James Carson & Robert Hoyt, 2001. "Dynamic Financial Models of Life Insurers," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 11-26.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Roland Strausz, 2009. "The Political Economy of Regulatory Risk," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2009-040, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    2. Shang, Han Lin & Haberman, Steven, 2017. "Grouped multivariate and functional time series forecasting:An application to annuity pricing," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 166-179.
    3. Michał Grajek & Lars-Hendrik Röller, 2012. "Regulation and Investment in Network Industries: Evidence from European Telecoms," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 189-216.
    4. Richter, Andreas & Weber, Frederik, 2009. "Mortality-Indexed Annuities," Discussion Papers in Business Administration 10994, University of Munich, Munich School of Management.
    5. Barbara Choroś & Wolfgang Härdle & Ostap Okhrin, 2009. "CDO and HAC," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2009-038, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    6. Wang, Pengjie & Pantelous, Athanasios A. & Vahid, Farshid, 2023. "Multi-population mortality projection: The augmented common factor model with structural breaks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 450-469.
    7. Franca Glenzer & Bertrand Achou, 2019. "Annuities, long-term care insurance, and insurer solvency," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 44(2), pages 252-276, April.
    8. Helena Chuliá & Montserrat Guillén & Jorge M. Uribe, 2015. "Mortality and Longevity Risks in the United Kingdom: Dynamic Factor Models and Copula-Functions," Working Papers 2015-03, Universitat de Barcelona, UB Riskcenter.
    9. Maria Grith & Wolfgang Härdle & Juhyun Park, 2009. "Shape invariant modelling pricing kernels and risk aversion," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2009-041, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    10. Höring, Dirk, 2012. "Will Solvency II market risk requirements bite? The impact of Solvency II on insurers' asset allocation," ICIR Working Paper Series 11/12, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).

    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. Katja Hanewald, 2009. "Mortality modeling: Lee-Carter and the macroeconomy," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2009-008, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    2. Rachel WINGENBACH & Jong-Min KIM & Hojin JUNG, 2020. "Living Longer in High Longevity Risk," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(1), pages 47-86, March.
    3. Qi Ming, 2013. "The Impact of Mortality Risk on the Asset and Liability Management of Insurance Companies," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 81-104, July.
    4. Blake, David & El Karoui, Nicole & Loisel, Stéphane & MacMinn, Richard, 2018. "Longevity risk and capital markets: The 2015–16 update," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 157-173.
    5. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew J.G., 2021. "Longevity risk and capital markets: The 2019-20 update," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 395-439.
    6. Han Lin Shang & Heather Booth & Rob Hyndman, 2011. "Point and interval forecasts of mortality rates and life expectancy: A comparison of ten principal component methods," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 25(5), pages 173-214.
    7. Lydia Dutton & Athanasios A. Pantelous & Malgorzata Seklecka, 2020. "The impact of economic growth in mortality modelling for selected OECD countries," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 533-550, April.
    8. Han Lin Shang & Rob J Hyndman & Heather Booth, 2010. "A comparison of ten principal component methods for forecasting mortality rates," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 8/10, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    9. Basellini, Ugofilippo & Camarda, Carlo Giovanni & Booth, Heather, 2023. "Thirty years on: A review of the Lee–Carter method for forecasting mortality," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1033-1049.
    10. David Blake & Andrew Cairns & Guy Coughlan & Kevin Dowd & Richard MacMinn, 2013. "The New Life Market," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 80(3), pages 501-558, September.
    11. Hatzopoulos, P. & Haberman, S., 2009. "A parameterized approach to modeling and forecasting mortality," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 103-123, February.
    12. Anja De Waegenaere & Bertrand Melenberg & Ralph Stevens, 2010. "Longevity Risk," De Economist, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 151-192, June.
    13. Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher & Søren Kjærgaard & James E. Oeppen & James W. Vaupel, 2019. "The impact of the choice of life table statistics when forecasting mortality," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(43), pages 1235-1268.
    14. Wu, Wen-Chieh & Cheng, Hui-Pei, 2010. "Symmetric mortality and asymmetric suicide cycles," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 1974-1981, June.
    15. Wen-Yi Chen, 2016. "Health progress and economic growth in the USA: the continuous wavelet analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 831-855, May.
    16. Valeria D’Amato & Emilia Di Lorenzo & Steven Haberman & Maria Russolillo & Marilena Sibillo, 2011. "The Poisson Log-Bilinear Lee-Carter Model," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 315-333.
    17. Tapia Granados, José A. & Rodriguez, Javier M., 2015. "Health, economic crisis, and austerity: A comparison of Greece, Finland and Iceland," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(7), pages 941-953.
    18. Edwards, Ryan, 2008. "Who is hurt by procyclical mortality?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(12), pages 2051-2058, December.
    19. Hong Li & Johnny Siu-Hang Li, 2017. "Optimizing the Lee-Carter Approach in the Presence of Structural Changes in Time and Age Patterns of Mortality Improvements," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 1073-1095, June.
    20. Wang, Chou-Wen & Huang, Hong-Chih & Hong, De-Chuan, 2013. "A feasible natural hedging strategy for insurance companies," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 532-541.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Life insurance; asset-liability management; stochastic mortality; Lee-Carter model; business cycle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2009-015. 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: RDC-Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sohubde.html .

    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.