Understanding core statistical properties and data features in mortality data are fundamental to the development of machine learning methods for demographic and actuarial applications of mortality projection. The study of statistical features in such data forms the basis for classification, regression and forecasting tasks. In particular, the understanding of key statistical structure in such data

We investigate joint modelling of longevity trends using the spatial statistical framework of Gaussian process (GP) regression. Our analysis is motivated by the Human Mortality Database (HMD) that provides unified raw mortality tables for nearly 40 countries. Yet few stochastic models exist for handling more than two populations at a time. To bridge this gap, we leverage a spatial covariance framework

The Scenario Weights for Importance Measurement (SWIM) package implements a flexible sensitivity analysis framework, based primarily on results and tools developed by Pesenti et al. (2019). SWIM provides a stressed version of a stochastic model, subject to model components (random variables) fulfilling given probabilistic constraints (stresses). Possible stresses can be applied on moments, probabilities

Conditional mean risk sharing appears to be effective to distribute total losses amongst participants within an insurance pool. This paper develops analytical results for this allocation rule in the individual risk model with dependence induced by the respective position within a graph. Precisely, losses are modelled by zero-augmented random variables whose joint occurrence distribution and individual

We examine the impact of asset allocation and contribution rates on the risk of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, using both a run-off and a shorter 3-year time horizon. Using the 3-year horizon, which is typically preferred by regulators, a high bond allocation reduces the spread of the distribution of surplus. However, this result is reversed when examined on a run-off basis. Furthermore, under

It is well known that the presence of outliers can mis-estimate (underestimate or overestimate) the overall reserve in the chain-ladder method, when we consider a linear regression model, based on the assumption that the coefficients are fixed and identical from one observation to another. By relaxing the usual regression assumptions and applying a regression with randomly varying coefficients, we

Raw mortality data often exhibit irregular patterns due to randomness. Graduation refers to the act of smoothing crude mortality rates. In this paper, we propose a flexible and robust methodology for graduating mortality rates using adaptive P-splines. Since the observed data at high ages are often sparse and unreliable, we use an exponentially increasing penalty. We use mortality data of England and

The classical credibility theory is a cornerstone of experience rating, especially in the field of property and casualty insurance. An obstacle to putting the credibility theory into practice is the conversion of available prior information into a precise choice of crucial hyperparameters. In most real-world applications, the information necessary to justify a precise choice is lacking, so we propose

The mvClaim package in R provides flexible modelling frameworks for multivariate insurance claim severity modelling. The current version of the package implements a parsimonious mixture of experts (MoE) model family with bivariate gamma distributions, as introduced in Hu et al., and a finite mixture of copula regressions within the MoE framework as in Hu & O’Hagan. This paper presents the modelling

This paper introduces a new julia package, LRMoE, a statistical software tailor-made for actuarial applications, which allows actuarial researchers and practitioners to model and analyse insurance loss frequencies and severities using the Logit-weighted Reduced Mixture-of-Experts (LRMoE) model. LRMoE offers several new distinctive features which are motivated by various actuarial applications and mostly

Variable annuities have become popular retirement and investment vehicles due to their attractive guarantee features. Nonetheless, managing the financial risks associated with the guarantees poses great challenges for insurers. One challenge is risk quantification, which involves frequent valuation of the guarantees. Insurers rely on the use of Monte Carlo simulation for valuation as the guarantees

In most industrialised countries, one of the major societal challenges is the demographic change coming along with the ageing of the population. The increasing life expectancy observed over the last decades underlines the importance to find ways to appropriately cover the financial needs of the elderly. A particular issue arises in the area of health, where sufficient care must be provided to a growing

In this paper, we develop a methodology to automatically classify claims using the information contained in text reports (redacted at their opening). From this automatic analysis, the aim is to predict if a claim is expected to be particularly severe or not. The difficulty is the rarity of such extreme claims in the database, and hence the difficulty, for classical prediction techniques like logistic

Throughout the past couple of decades, the surge in the sale of equity-linked products has led to many discussions on the evaluation and risk management of surrender options embedded in these products. However, most studies treat such options as American/Bermudian style options. In this article, a different approach is presented where only a portion of the policyholders react optimally due to the belief

Initial insurance losses are often reported with a textual description of the claim. The claims manager must determine the adequate case reserve for each known claim. In this paper, we present a framework for predicting the amount of loss given a textual description of the claim using a large number of words found in the descriptions. Prior work has focused on classifying insurance claims based on

In Finance and Actuarial Science, the multivariate elliptical family of distributions is a famous and well-used model for continuous risks. However, it has an essential shortcoming: all its univariate marginal distributions are the same, up to location and scale transformations. For example, all marginals of the multivariate Student’s t-distribution, an important member of the elliptical family, have

Mortality projection and forecasting of life expectancy are two important aspects of the study of demography and life insurance modelling. We demonstrate in this work the existence of long memory in mortality data. Furthermore, models incorporating long memory structure provide a new approach to enhance mortality forecasts in terms of accuracy and reliability, which can improve the understanding of

The retirement systems in many developed countries have been increasingly moving from defined benefit towards defined contribution system. In defined contribution systems, financial and longevity risks are shifted from pension providers to retirees. In this paper, we use a probabilistic approach to analyse the uncertainty associated with superannuation accumulation and decumulation. We apply an economic

Insurance companies make extensive use of Monte Carlo simulations in their capital and solvency models. To overcome the computational problems associated with Monte Carlo simulations, most large life insurance companies use proxy models such as replicating portfolios (RPs). In this paper, we present an example based on a variable annuity guarantee, showing the main challenges faced by practitioners

Spatial analysis ranges from simple univariate descriptive statistics to complex multivariate analyses and is typically used to investigate spatial patterns or to identify spatially linked consumer behaviours in insurance. This paper investigates if the incorporation of publicly available spatially linked demographic census data at population level is useful in modelling customers’ lapse behaviour

It has become of key interest in the insurance industry to understand and extract information from telematics car driving data. Telematics car driving data of individual car drivers can be summarised in so-called speed–acceleration heatmaps. The aim of this study is to cluster such speed–acceleration heatmaps to different categories by analysing similarities and differences in these heatmaps. Making

A model of mortality is introduced which is based on a data generating process defined in terms of the continuous-time dynamics of a Lexis diagram. Through counting process arguments, the likelihood of death count data sampled at yearly intervals is shown to be equivalent to that of a certain Poisson likelihood. Therefore a hidden Markov model with Poisson distributed observations and a Gaussian state

The Poisson process is an essential building block to move up to complicated counting processes, such as the Cox (“doubly stochastic Poisson”) process, the Hawkes (“self-exciting”) process, exponentially decaying shot-noise Poisson (simply “shot-noise Poisson”) process and the dynamic contagion process. The Cox process provides flexibility by letting the intensity not only depending on time but also

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are creating products and services with the potential not only to change the environment in which actuaries operate but also to provide new opportunities within actuarial science. These advances are based on a modern approach to designing, fitting and applying neural networks, generally referred to as “Deep Learning.” This paper investigates

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are creating products and services with the potential not only to change the environment in which actuaries operate, but also to provide new opportunities within actuarial science. These advances are based on a modern approach to designing, fitting and applying neural networks, generally referred to as “Deep Learning”. This paper investigates

In this article, we explore the use of multivariate Archimedean copulas in modelling the mortality dependence between different countries and pricing mortality bonds. We study the fitting performance of multi-dimensional, fully nested, and partially nested Archimedean copulas and test 11 types of generators and two skewed distributions. To evaluate their practical usefulness, we adopt the fitted models

The aim of the paper is to derive a simple, implementable machine learning method for general insurance losses. An algorithm for learning a general insurance loss triangle is developed and justified. An argument is made for applying support vector regression (SVR) to this learning task (in order to facilitate transparency of the learning method as compared to more “black-box” methods such as deep neural

During the past decade, genetics research has allowed scientists and clinicians to explore the human genome in detail and reveal many thousands of common genetic variants associated with disease. Genetic risk scores, known as polygenic risk scores (PRSs), aggregate risk information from the most important genetic variants into a single score that describes an individual’s genetic predisposition to

Abstract In this paper, we discuss the impact of some mortality data anomalies on an internal model capturing longevity risk in the Solvency 2 framework. In particular, we are concerned with abnormal cohort effects such as those for generations 1919 and 1920, for which the period tables provided by the Human Mortality Database show particularly low and high mortality rates, respectively. To provide

This Special Issue of the Annals of Actuarial Science contains 12 contributions to the academic literature all dealing with longevity risk and capital markets. Draft versions of the papers were presented at Longevity 14: The Fourteenth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference that was held in Amsterdam on 20-21 September 2018. It was hosted by the Pensions Institute at

Introducing common shocks is a popular dependence modelling approach, with some recent applications in loss reserving. The main advantage of this approach is the ability to capture structural dependence coming from known relationships. In addition, it helps with the parsimonious construction of correlation matrices of large dimensions. However, complications arise in the presence of "unbalanced data"