Fair Valuation of Life Insurance Liabilities: The Impact of Interest Rate Guarantees, Surrender Options and Bonus Policies - Proceedings AFIR 1999 - Tokyo, Japan

The paper analyzes one of the most common life insurance products the so-called participariflg (or with pro@) policy. This type of contract stands in contrast to UnitLinked (UL) products in that interest is credited to the policy periodically according to some mechanism which smoothes past returns on the life insurance company’s (LIC) assets. As is the case for UL products, the participating policies are typically equipped with an interest rate guarantee and possibly also an option to surmnder (sell-back) the policy to the LIC before maturity. The paper shows that the typical participating policy can be decomposed into a risk free bond element, a bonus option, and a surrender option. A dynamic model is constructed in which these elements can be valued separately using contingent claims analysis. The impact of various bonus policies and various levels of the guaranteed interest rate is analyzed numerically. We find that values of participating policies are highly sensitive to the bonus policy, that surrender options can be quite valuable, and that LIC solvency can be quickly jeopardized if earning opportunities deteriorate in a situation where bonus reserves are low and promised returns are high. JEL Classification Codes: G13, G22, and G23. Subject/Insurance Branche Codes: IMlO and IEOl.