The paper analyzes the design of participating life insurance contracts with minimum return rate guarantees. Without default risk, the insured receives the maximum of a guaranteed rate and a participation in the investment returns. With default risk, the payoff is modified by a default put...

Contracts paying a guaranteed minimum rate of return and a fraction of a positive excess rate, which is specified relative to a benchmark portfolio, are closely related to unit-linked life-insurance products and can be considered as alternatives to direct investment in the underlying benchmark....