Managing Systematic Mortality Risk in Life Annuities : An Application of Longevity Derivatives

Developing a liquid longevity market requires reliable and well-designed financial instruments. An index-based longevity swap and a cap are analyzed in this paper under a tractable stochastic mortality model. The model is calibrated using Australian mortality data and analytical formulas for prices of longevity derivatives are provided. Hedge effectiveness is examined under a hypothetical life annuity portfolio subject to longevity risk. The paper presents various hedging features exhibited by a longevity swap and a cap based on different assumptions underlying the market price of longevity risk, the term to maturity of hedging instruments, as well as the size of the underlying annuity portfolio. The results are demonstrated to have important implications for the optimal use of longevity hedging instruments with linear and nonlinear payoff structures