We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

Motivated by a recent demographic study establishing a link between macroeconomic fluctuations and the mortality index kt in the Lee-Carter model, we assess the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on the solvency of a life insurance company. Liabilities in our stochastic simulation framework...

Motivated by a recent demographic study establishing a link betweenmacroeconomic fluctuations and the mortality index kt in the Lee-Cartermodel, we assess the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on the solvencyof a life insurance company. Liabilities in our stochastic simulationframework are...

We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

Until its liberalisation in 1994 exclusive agents dominated the distribution of products in the German life insurance industry. Since then, their importance has been declining for the benefit of both distribution via direct distribution channel and independent agents. However, the market shares...

The German insurance market was liberalized in 1994 by the introduction of the "single passport" allowing European insurers to operate throughout the entire European Union. The European directive put also an end to price and insurance contract terms regulation. These measures were meant for...

We study the valuation and hedging of unit-linked life insurance contracts in a setting where mortality intensity is governed by a stochastic process. We focus on model risk arising from different specifications for the mortality intensity. To do so we assume that the mortality intensity is...

We exploit the natural experiment of the 2005 income tax reform in Germany to study the effects of tax incentives on consumer behavior in life insurance markets. Our empirical analysis of sociodemographic, economic, and psychological household characteristics elicited in the German SAVE study...