In an editorial in ASTIN Bulletin, Hans Bühlmann (2002) suggests it is time to change the teaching of life insurance theory towards the real life challenges of that industry. The following note is a response to this editorial

We discuss the "life cycle model" by first introducing a credit market with only biometric risk, and then market risk is introduced via risky securities. This framework enables us to find optimal pension plans and life insurance contracts where the benefits are state dependent. We compare these...

In the canonical model of investments, the optimal fractions in the risky assets do not depend on the time horizon. This is against empirical evidence, and against the typical recommendations of portfolio managers. We demonstrate that if the intertemporal coefficient of relative risk aversion is...