Gis 2012 Paper Alina Pettifer
Gis 2012 Paper Alina Pettifer
Insurance Pricing
This paper has been prepared for Actuaries Institute 2012 General Insurance Seminar.
The Institute Council wishes it to be understood that opinions put forward herein are not necessarily those of
the Institute and the Council is not responsible for those opinions.
Table of Contents
1. Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 2
2. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 3
3. An Overview of Commercial Insurance ....................................................................... 5
3.1. What is Commercial Insurance?............................................................................. 5
3.2. Key Roles in Commercial Pricing ............................................................................ 6
3.3. What is the Small-Medium Enterprise Segment? .................................................. 7
3.4. What is the Corporate Segment? .......................................................................... 8
3.5. Product Distribution and Policy Wordings ............................................................. 9
3.6. The Dynamics of Pricing in the Market................................................................. 11
4. Engagement with the Business ..................................................................................... 14
4.1. Translating Technical analysis into Business Outcomes ..................................... 14
4.2. Relationship with Claims ........................................................................................ 15
5. The Commercial Insurance Pricing Actuary and Data ............................................. 17
5.1. Why is Data Quality a Key Issue for Commercial Insurance? ........................... 17
5.2. Key data quality issues ........................................................................................... 18
5.3. Making Best Use of the Available Internal and External Data ......................... 19
6. Technical Pricing Methods ............................................................................................ 21
6.1. Generalised Linear Modelling ............................................................................... 21
6.2. Experience Rating................................................................................................... 22
6.3. Industry Rating ......................................................................................................... 23
6.4. Alternatives to Competitor Analysis ..................................................................... 26
6.5. Adding Value to a Corporate Insurance Portfolio ............................................. 27
6.6. Large Loss modelling .............................................................................................. 28
6.7. Rate Index ................................................................................................................ 30
6.8. Machine learning.................................................................................................... 31
6.9. Other Modelling ...................................................................................................... 31
7. Pricing of Long Tail Classes ........................................................................................... 33
7.1. Estimation of Ultimate Claims Incurred ................................................................ 33
7.2. Superimposed Inflation .......................................................................................... 34
7.3. Latent Claims ........................................................................................................... 34
7.4. Legislative Changes and Precedence................................................................ 35
8. Complexities around Premium in Commercial Insurance ....................................... 36
8.1. Seasonal Trends around the Sale of Policies ....................................................... 36
8.2. Premium Adjustments at Policy Expiry.................................................................. 36
8.3. Earnings Patterns ..................................................................................................... 37
8.4. Insurance Taxes ....................................................................................................... 38
8.5. Terrorism Reinsurance Cover ................................................................................. 38
8.6. Burning Cost Premium Model ................................................................................ 39
9. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 40
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
1. Abstract
Over the past 30 years, Personal lines pricing has been very attractive area of
practice for pricing actuaries, as the characteristics of the portfolios align to the
requirements of statistical analysis. These include a large amount of data,
homogenous risks and a limited exposure to large losses. This has enabled actuaries
to deliver significant value to Personal lines insurers through technical analysis and
the development of sophisticated pricing structures.
The role of actuaries in Commercial insurance pricing is less established and there is
an opportunity for the profession to become an integral part of the Commercial
insurance industry. However this opportunity comes with challenges as a typical
Commercial portfolio will
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
2. Introduction
Over the past 30 years, actuaries have been heavily involved in the pricing of
Personal lines portfolios but have found the Commercial insurance portfolios to be
much less accessible. This is due to a number of characteristics of Commercial
insurance including but not limited to
There is a significant opportunity for actuaries to add more value in the pricing of
Commercial insurance and this paper provides a holistic overview of how to
approach the pricing of a Commercial lines portfolio. The paper focuses on
providing the actuary with recommendations on how to positively influence the
business outcomes of the insurer by producing targeted analytical outputs. The key
recommendations in the paper are
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
will enable the Actuary to ensure that their analysis is built on solid foundations.
This will require
Understanding the availability of key data fields and the quality of these
fields
Being proactive around improving the data asset for analysis by cleansing
data available internally and accessing external data
Taking a role as a data champion within the insurer
That the Actuary adopts appropriate technical pricing methods which allow for
the characteristics of the portfolio. Some of the key characteristics are
High proportion of large losses
The use of experience rating to price large accounts
The large number of industries
IBNR / IBNER
Level of Superimposed inflation
The legal environment including legislative changes
Latent Claims
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
We have grouped the key Commercial portfolios in the below table into three
segments - SME, Corporate and Speciality Classes based on the target customer for
the portfolio. A portfolio that is not typically targeted towards either the SME or
Corporate customers has been allocated to the Speciality Classes segment.
Some of the above portfolios are sold in the market as a number of distinct products.
For example, the products within the Professional Risks portfolio include Medical
Malpractice, Directors and Officers Insurance and Professional Indemnity. Some
portfolios also may have a number of very distinct sections with different risk
characteristics. For example, a single Business Package policy may include Fire,
Public and Products Liability, Burglary, Machinery Breakdown, Consequential Loss,
Tax Investigation, Theft and Money, Employee Dishonesty, Glass Breakage,
Computer and Electronics and General Property sections.
Recommendation 1: That the Actuary reads the policy wordings and spends some
time with the Case Underwriters, Claims Managers and Portfolio Managers to ensure
they understand the products that they work on including the covers offered and
the policy characteristics that drive claims. This additional understanding will enable
the Actuary to set more informed assumptions, to better understand potential drivers
of analytical results and to better translate the analysis into commercially actionable
insights.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
The large number of very distinct sections offered under some Commercial products
can make it challenging for the Actuary to be across all of the analytical
requirements of the portfolio. For example, an Actuary would require experience in
natural perils, short tail commercial and long tailed commercial pricing to be able to
fully deliver the pricing requirements for a business package portfolio.
Recommendation 2: That the Actuary is aware of the skills that are required across
the portfolios that they have responsibility for, and seek specialist expertise as
required in order to best support the portfolio. Where specialist expertise is not
available, the Actuary should make the Portfolio Manager aware of the potential
limitations in the analysis
Pricing Actuary – has the responsibility for providing technical analysis to support
the strategic direction of the portfolio. This includes
Calculating the technical premium which is the amount required to meet
the financial targets of the organisation at a granular level
Providing recommended book premium changes and assisting portfolio
managers to understand the likely result of the proposed changes
Monitoring of the key performance metrics of the portfolio including the
underlying profitability, movements in volumes and the impact of pricing
changes
Portfolio Manager – has the responsibility for looking holistically at the portfolio
and uses financial and management information reports, actuarial advice and
an understanding of industry trends to make business decisions about the
strategy and pricing of the portfolio. The key responsibilities of the Portfolio
Manager include
Developing and driving the overall strategy for the portfolio
Setting the book premium for the portfolio; calculated by applying an
algorithm based on a number of risk characteristics. The book premium
takes into account the technical premium with an overlay based on
underwriting judgement and the state of the market
Identifying target segments for growth
Setting underwriting standards and auditing individual policies to ensure
that case underwriting is aligned with the standards
Providing advice to Case Underwriters in relation to difficult or high risk
policies
Monitoring the overall performance of the portfolio
Case Underwriter – considers the risks inherent in an individual policy and makes
a judgement on whether the level of risk of the policy is acceptable, and if so
then sets the actual charged premium based on:
The book premium set by the portfolio manager
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
To successfully implement a portfolio strategy, the three above roles need to have a
strong transparent relationship to ensure that there is a consistent view on the
strategic direction of the portfolio.
Recommendation 3: That the Actuary who is working on a portfolio that has a high
level of case underwriting spends some time shadowing a Case Underwriter to get a
better understanding of how the case underwriting process works. In particular,
what the Case Underwriter considers on an individual policy level as part of the risk
acceptance process. This will provide the Actuary with a better understanding of
the risk drivers of the portfolio and an end to end understanding of the pricing
process.
As such, many of the standard actuarial pricing concepts and techniques that are
used for personal lines are also be able to be applied to the SME commercial
portfolios with only minor modification.
For some SME portfolios, a strategic decision may be made, in alignment with the
insurer’s risk appetite, to case underwrite a small sub-set of policies which exhibit a
high level of risk typically identified by the industry or geographic location of the
policy. As the Case Underwriter is likely to select the better risks in the segment, the
loss ratio performance of the segment may be better than expected based purely
on the risk characteristics
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 5: That the Actuary work with the Portfolio Manager to form a
shared understanding of how the level of case underwriting on a segment has
impacted the historical performance of the segment and that this is taken into
account in their pricing recommendations. For example, it may not be viable to
grow a highly case underwritten segment of a portfolio without relaxing the
underwriting standards applied to the segment, potentially resulting in a significant
deterioration in the loss ratio of the segment.
A very high level of case underwriting for Corporate businesses, which can
result in exclusions or high deductibles for risk exposures which are considered
to be undesirable. This may mean that two large businesses of similar size
operating in the same industry may have a very different insurance risk,
depending on the coverage, limits and exclusions placed on each policy.
This also may be reflected with a significant premium adjustment from the
standard book premium to allow for the individual risk of the insured. As such,
the performance of a portfolio is heavily driven by the skill of the Case
Underwriters.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
The quality of the data is significantly worse for the Corporate segment than
for the SME segment for the following reasons
The limitations of the core insurance system to record all of the relevant
risk information
Corporate risks are manually rated, so missing or incorrect information
will not have a direct impact on the premium charged
The large number of individual risks that could be insured under a single
Corporate policy making it administratively expensive to enter all of the
information
Corporate businesses generally have a lot more capital and hence are able
to retain more insurance risk which is reflected in greater claim deductibles or
aggregate deductibles. For some Corporate portfolios, the majority of claim
costs are therefore likely to come from infrequent large claims with the
insured retaining the smaller or working claims
A range of complex and unique businesses which mean that the type of
claims observed in the past are often not reflective of the types of claims
which may occur in the future. It is therefore challenging to form a view
about price by analysing portfolio level historical claims experience
Some Corporate policies will have a gross written premium in excess of $1
million. Thus the writing of a single policy may have a material impact on the
overall size and viability of the portfolio. When the market premium is at an
unprofitable level, the insurer needs to balance whether it is better from a
long term perspective to retain the business and potentially take a loss during
a soft market cycle, or to reduce the size of the portfolio thus reducing the
expense base for the portfolio
A high level of reinsurance on Corporate portfolios. On some individual
policies, this could be in excess of 90% of the gross premium and can mean
that there is a significant difference between the net and gross performance
of the portfolio
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Most of the broker cluster groups and major brokers have drafted policy wordings for
the larger portfolios and require insurers to comply with the wordings in order to
simplify the processes of the broker and to provide the broker with a competitive
advantage. The differences in the policy wordings can have a significant impact on
the overall claims cost of the policy. To illustrate the point, we have compared the
wording around peak period increases or seasonal increases in cover from the
Money section in the Business Package policy for ANZiii to the Steadfast policy coveriv
both underwritten by QBE.
The clause in the ANZ policy wording increases the sum insured taken out on
the section by 50% for 60 days before Christmas Day, 30 days before Easter
Sunday, for bank holidays and a few days after each of these periods up to
the next banking day.
The clause in the Steadfast policy wording has a 50% increase on at least 126
days around Christmas and Easter, with an additional 49 days for a festive,
religious or ethnic celebration as well as the lesser of an extra 100% or an
extra $75,000 for bank holidays up to the next banking day.
This example only relates to a single clause on a small section of the policy, but
illustrates the differences that do exist and which, over a whole policy wording, can
have a material impact on the overall claims cost. Similar differences also occur in
the wordings between different insurers.
Intermediaries can also create schemes which are typically tailored to meet the
specific insurance needs of companies in a particular industry or members of a
profession or organisation. Schemes are available across most of the Commercial
lines of business but are very common in the Professional Risks product where
professional organisations will often set up a scheme for their members. In general
schemes will have some or all of the following
Specific policy wordings to ensure that the policy is more applicable to the
target group
Preferential pricing over a similar standard product sold by the insurer due to
the collective buying power of the scheme
A strong oversight from the intermediary limiting pricing changes and impact
to the end customer
Guaranteed acceptance of cover for end customers who meets predefined
guidelines
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 10: That the Actuary understands whether the difference in the
policy wordings, price and risk acceptance of each scheme to the remainder of the
portfolio is such that the scheme should be excluded from the analysis of the
portfolio to ensure that the scheme does not skew the analysis of the portfolio.
Recommendation 11: The actuary should also be proactive around being involved
in the pricing of the larger schemes including understanding of their underlying
experience and contribution to expenses.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Hard Market
Hard Market
Begins
•Prices stop rising
•Underwriting
standards improve •Insurers making
excess profit
•Premiums rise sharply
The Insurance Pricing Cycle is much more apparent in the Corporate portfolios in
part due to it being easier for capital to enter this market either via an overseas
insurer or through Lloyd’s syndicates. When the market is soft, the insurer may
focus on retaining market share to the detriment of profitability. This may be an
explicit business decision as moving in and out of the market with the cycle is
likely to impact relationships with intermediaries.
Product Strategy: The strategy developed by the Portfolio Manager can have a
high level of influence on the setting of the price for a portfolio. For example, a
Portfolio Manager may have a strategy where a product is sold as a loss leader in
the market.
Existing Relationships: As Commercial insurance is typically sold by
intermediaries, the intermediaries can often place pressure on insurers to provide
discounts on premium either on an individual policy basis or across a group of
policies. The insurer will consider the size of the intermediary and the strength
and length of the relationship before agreeing to any discount.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 13: That the Actuary have a strong understanding of the different
metrics that are being used to measure profitability across the organisation, what
each metric is showing and to explain to senior management the reasons for the
difference. This will promote a consistent view of profitability across the insurer and
provide a basis for informed decision making.
Recommendation 14: That the Actuary works with the Portfolio Manager to develop
a philosophy for the pricing of the portfolio which is then agreed with senior
management to provide a clear direction as to how the different parts of the market
cycle will be addressed. This will need to include:
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 15: That the Actuary spends time on an ongoing basis with the
Portfolio Manager to understand the concepts around the portfolio, the strategy for
the portfolio, the competitive environment and the portfolio target outcomes to
ensure any analysis completed is fit for purpose.
Recommendation 16: That the actuary engages with the Portfolio Manager
throughout the technical pricing process, soliciting input and feedback in relation to
the claims, premium and business mix trends that have been observed in the
portfolio. As part of the engagement, when commencing any analysis the Actuary
should have a detailed kick off meeting with the Portfolio Manager to cover
Recommendation 17: That the Actuary appreciates that the nature of Commercial
insurance means that any analysis is not an exact science and that they are aware
of the limitations and uncertainties of their analysis and do not over sell the results as
the one true answer.
Recommendation 18: That the Actuary is transparent on all assumptions made in the
analysis, provides justification to support the decisions made and clearly identifies
the assumptions which have the most impact on the final result. This will give the
Portfolio Manager the opportunity to challenge the assumptions behind the analysis
and will not only lead to a better quality of output but will also improve the likelihood
of the analysis driving business decisions.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 19: That the Actuary provides the Portfolio Manager with a
sensitivity analysis of the final result based on the variability of key assumptions.
Examples of key assumptions may include:
Recommendation 20: That the Actuary provides the Portfolio Manager with
actionable insights such as identifying profitable and unprofitable segments rather
than just a high level view of profitability
Recommendation 21: That the Actuary is proactive in presenting new ideas and
analysis which could help the Portfolio Manager to be successful in achieving the
portfolio outcomes. It is likely that the Portfolio Manager will not have a full
awareness of what business decisions can be enhanced through the use of
technical analysis and the Actuary should to take a lead role in identifying and
suggesting where they could add most value.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
In addition, analysis undertaken by the Actuary may add value to claims. For
example significant changes to the portfolio mix may have an impact on the
number and type of claims that the Claims Managers would expect to see in the
future.
Recommendation 22: That the Actuary invests time in developing a strong ongoing
relationship with the Claims Managers in order to provide both better technical
pricing and better decision support for the insurer.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Commercial insurers tend to run on legacy systems which may not have data
validation rules resulting in erroneous or missing entries
A large proportion of Commercial insurance policies are sold through brokers
who aim to minimise their administrative cost and any inconvenience for their
end client and will push back on the collection of any additional fields or the
clarifications of data errors
As any investment in analytics and management information has not been a
priority for Commercial insurance, there has been less incentive for the insurers
to have had a focus on data quality
A long lag time between implemented improvements in data collection and
the ability to see clear business outcomes, resulting in a lack of urgency in
making any improvements
Although data governance is not a core skill of an Actuary, they are heavy users of
information and delivering more detailed and accurate analysis is likely to require an
investment of time in this area.
Recommendation 23: That the Actuary takes a role as a data champion for the
organisation. They should not own the data issues but instead take an active role in
driving improvements in the quality of the data collected. This may include:
Building a strong relationship with the area that has ownership of data
governance in the organisation. If this is not clear, then it is worthwhile
facilitating the formation of a data governance committee
Justify the importance of a new data field by presenting analysis which shows
a clear business outcome that could be achieved if the data was collected.
This could be achieved by collecting information on a sample of policies and
showing a link between the rating factor and claims
Building support at an executive and senior management level around the
value of having a credible data asset
Identify and agree key fields with senior management to focus on from a
data quality perspective. Including statistics on the collection and accuracy
of data in the KPIs of the staff who collect and process the information is a
suggested way of driving change.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
The level of involvement that the Actuary will have in ensuring that the data asset
enables detailed analysis of Commercial portfolios, will depend on the overall
maturity of the business intelligence function. In an insurer with a highly mature
business intelligence function, built considering the needs of the Actuary, the
Actuary will be mainly a customer of the data asset. In an insurer with a lower level
of maturity, the Actuary may need to spend a significant amount of time ensuring
that a data asset exists which meets their needs.
Recommendation 24: That the Actuary balances any necessary investment in data
against their key role in pricing
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 25: That the Actuary spends some time prior to conducting any
pricing analysis on understanding the data quality of the portfolio. This may include
excluding any policies or segments of the portfolio which have poor data quality
Recommendation 26: That the Actuary documents any material limitations of the
analysis resulting from any data quality issues identified and sense checks any
analysis against the Portfolio Manager’s understanding of risk exposures.
Recommendation 27: That the Actuary is careful in considering any form of analysis
which incorporates policies with a policy attachment date in the most recent 3
months as there could be policies which have not yet been entered in the system
which could result in the analysis being incorrect.
5.3. Making Best Use of the Available Internal and External Data
The current quality and volume of data available for many Commercial portfolios
may limit the complexity and credibility of the pricing analysis that is able to be
performed. However, there are many ways that the Actuary can enhance the
existing data asset through the better use of internal data or the sourcing of data
from an external resource. Some examples of approaches to improve the data
asset are
Internal Data
Portfolios which have similar characteristics can provide a starting point for
assumptions. For example, a claim size distribution for the bodily injury claims
from the liability section of a small portfolio could be based on the claim size
distribution for the bodily injury claims for the whole insurer.
Text mining techniques can be used to extract structured data from the free form
data. This could include
Extracting information about the policy wording or sub limits on the policy
from the free form entry fields
Extracting information around the cause or nature of loss for each claim
Splitting Liability claims into Bodily Injury and Property damage claims
Identifying Liability claims coming directly from labour hire or being
recovered from one of the Workers’ Compensation schemes
Splitting property water damage claims into those caused by flood and
those caused by burst pipes
Information captured on systems other than the core system
Risk Engineers are often engaged in Corporate insurance to assess the risk of
different accounts and provide information back to the Case Underwriters. This
information is typically kept on a paper file but could be converted into a series
of subjective scores to be used to aid pricing and monitoring of the portfolio.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
External Data
Using external industry data to enhance the volume of information available.
This may include the APRA National Claims and Policy Database or the ISA
database and will provide the insurer with a wider base of data in order to
understand market share by key segments
model large claims
compare overall profitability to the market
ABS Statistics around the financial state or overall size of each industry. Census
data can also provide information about regional characteristics to support
geospatial analysis
Reinsurers and reinsurance brokers will often provide additional services to their
clients that may include information around large claims or natural peril
experience.
External data providers such as Veda and Dun and Bradstreet have information
available for sale for each business in Australia including
Industry code
Number of employees
Time in business and Incorporation date
Business size
Turnover
Financial behaviours including credit profile
This information can be used to cleanse existing fields, to providing additional
factors or even as a database to auto-fill factors in the rating calculations. In
addition, the external data providers have detailed information around the
demographics of particular areas or the characteristics including total number of
businesses and total turnover by ANZSIC.
Geographic data exists in commercially available databases which contain over
200,000 fully geocoded points of interest which could be combined with the
address data on each individual risk to create additional factors which have
been hypothesized as a driver of claims experience – for example the distance
to the nearest fire station or the number of pubs located within in a 1 kilometre
radius.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 30: That the Actuary considers whether a GLM is the appropriate
modelling methodology for the Commercial portfolio, taking into account the
following complexities
Modelling structure – how to best segment the portfolio for modelling purposes,
including understanding the covers and claim types that are covered under the
product and the types of risks written. For example:
For Commercial Property, the Actuary may want to consider separate
claim type models (Fire, Theft, Accident and Weather) for each of the
covers (Buildings, Stock and Contents).
For Commercial Motor, the Actuary may build a separate GLM for sedans
and utes but develop a simpler model for large trucks due to the low
frequency, high severity nature of the claims on this segment of the
portfolio.
The Actuary needs to also consider the current and proposed book rating
algorithm and how the insurer will implement the findings from the statistical
model in modifying the book premiums.
Model fit – the nature of Commercial insurance means that the impact of risk
drivers on the claims performance is often less evident and the model does not fit
experience as well as would be generally seen in a model on Personal lines. As
such, it is very important to not just have the data drive the modelling decisions
but to utilise judgement and underwriting input. This could involve including
factors in the model even if they are not statistically significant if the results are
consistent with those from a qualitative perspective.
Business mix changes – particularly if the modelling period is long and the
company has had a strategy to actively change their business mix in response to
new information
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Pure Experience – based on the historical claims experience of the specific policy
Exposure – based on applying portfolio level assumptions to the exposure mix of
the policy
Typically, the weighting towards the Pure Experience will be higher for policies which
have higher exposure and more years of experience.
Recommendation 31: That the Actuary considers the following when implementing
an experience rating methodology
The impact that the following factors have on the choice of the weighting
between the Pure Experience rated premium and the Exposure rated premium
for a particular policy:
Stability of the claims experience over time
Number of years of available data - a minimum of 3 years of claims data is
required with 5 years being preferable
Size of the account
Changes in the type of risks being covered under the policy
Account composition – if there segments of the portfolio that generally
experience large infrequent losses then these segments should have a
higher weighting towards being exposure rated rather than based on the
actual experience
Consistency of the policy wording over time particularly with regards to
the level of excess on the policy
Current market practice – currently the market practice adopts a higher
weighting towards the claims experience of the portfolio than can be
justified using statistical theory
Due to the low frequency and high severity of large losses, Exposure rating should
be used to allow for the losses above the large loss limit. As such, the choice of
the large loss limit can have a significant impact on final quoted price
How to include claims from natural perils in the model
The weighting in the model for the different years of experience. In particular,
should there be a higher weighting towards the more recent years
Allowance needs to be made for incurred but not reported claims, noting that
the renewal pricing is likely to be provided around 6 weeks prior to the expiry of
the policy
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
As a large proportion of industries in the Australian market are small in size, the
historical claims experience that is available even at an industry level does not
necessarily reflect their underlying risk. This can make it very difficult for a
Commercial insurer to appropriately rate by industry.
The current book rating structure typically used in the market is:
Each insured company is classified under the Australian and New Zealand
Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC). Some insurers split individual ANZSICs
into sub-industries that they believe have different risk characteristics.
Each industry is assigned to a hazard level based on an assessment of the
relative risk of different industries. There are generally 10 – 20 hazard levels in a
typical rating structure.
A different premium rate or relativity is assigned to each hazard level. Workers’
Compensation portfolios tend to apply a separate premium rate for each
ANZSIC rather than grouping up to a hazard level.
There are a number of approaches used by actuaries to allow for the industry of the
insured in the technical rates. An overview of some of the main approaches,
including the pros and cons of each method are described below.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Underwriting Judgement
The Portfolio Manager sets the hazard level for each industry based on their
assessment of risk.
Advantages
Requires no data or analytics and thus can be used by small insurers
with limited historical experience, Corporate insurers or insurers who
have made a limited investment in analytics
The Portfolio Manager is able to reflect their understanding of risk in the
pricing structure
Can be used to pro-actively price emerging risks.
Limitations
Is highly subjective
it is difficult to develop granular pricing structures with a large range of
hazard levels and it is difficult to justify the pricing structure to
intermediaries
Has a strong key person risk with the decision and knowledge around
the decision sitting with the Portfolio Manager.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 32: That the Actuary adopts the approach for industry rating that
is most suitable for each portfolio based on the characteristics of the portfolio.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
However it is more difficult for the insurer to understand the premium charged by
their key competitors as it is primarily distributed through intermediaries. In spite of
this, the insurer can get an indication of how their premium compares to the market
by using two internal metrics
A low Renewal Rate / Strike Rate – suggests that the insurer premiums are
significantly higher relative to their competitors premium
A high Renewal Rate / Strike Rate – suggests that the insurers premiums are
significantly lower relative to their competitors premium
This assumes that pricing is a key driver of volumes and does not allow for
The strength of the relationship that the insurer has with their intermediaries
The attractiveness of the policy wording, where differences in wordings exist
The strength of the brand of the insurer including its size and expertise in the
market, credit rating and reputation for paying claims
However, analysis performed on these metrics will give the insurer a better idea of
how they are placed in the market and will aid in understanding the likely impact of
pricing changes.
In comparing the Strike Rate and the Renewal Rate metrics, we note that
The strike rate will tend to react faster to differences between the pricing of the
insurer and the wider market than the renewal rate as it is easier for
intermediaries to not place new business with an insurer than to move significant
volumes of existing business from that insurer
The strike rate can be overstated if the insurer is known to be significantly
overpriced in a particular segment as intermediaries may not spend the time to
even get a quote
Recommendation 33: That the Actuary develops renewal rate and strike rate
analysis for each portfolio to better understand the market positioning of the insurer
by segment.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
The pricing and profitability of the overall segment has historically been very
cyclical, with super-profits followed by the entry of significant capital into the
market driving the price down to highly unprofitable levels
Insurers may focus on risk selection and selecting policies with lower risk
exposure in a segment regardless of the market price which may be very
unprofitable particularly during the soft market
Insurers may focus on writing high hazard risks for the high premium charged.
Due to the typical low frequency and high severity claims for a typical
Corporate portfolio, the high hazard risks can make super profits for a number
of years but are susceptible to large losses which can result in a significant loss
occurring 1 in 10 years being larger than all of the achieved profits over the
period.
Natural peril pricing - in pricing a large ISR account, it can be difficult for a Case
Underwriter to assess the weather related risk as some weather related events will
have a return period of more than 1 in 50 years. Utilising natural peril models to
assess both the exposure and the expected cost of these type of losses can help
the Case Underwriter both charge an appropriate price for this exposure as well
as manage their aggregate exposure in high risk areas
Pricing adequacy framework - an Actuary can develop a framework which
provides a view of the appropriate price that should be charged for an
individual policy. At the most basic level, the framework can provide the Case
Underwriter with an understanding of the total non-claims related costs such as
administration expenses, reinsurance expenses, commission and profit margin.
The Actuary can further enhance the framework by including claims costs based
either on portfolio level data or the historical claims experience of the actual
policy, with appropriate allowances for IBNR and IBNER claims, inflation and large
losses.
Optimising reinsurance arrangements - reinsurance arrangements are used more
actively in the Corporate space. Actuaries can develop a model to compare
the impact of the different reinsurance arrangements on the expected
profitability and the volatility of the profitability of the portfolio.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
The key challenge that the Actuary will face is the lack of credible data to make an
accurate estimate of large losses for pricing purposes. The key reasons for the lack of
data include
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
of policy that has caused the claim. Conversely, the insurer may be exposed to
new risks which it was not exposed to historically
Improvement in risk management processes can lead to reductions in the
underlying large loss risk of certain segments
Recommendation 35: That the Actuary in estimating the cost of large losses for
pricing purposes, supplements the actual experience of the insurer with the
following:
In developing a technical price for large losses the Actuary needs to be able to
Estimate the frequency and the severity of large losses leading to an overall
portfolio level large loss loading
Allocate large losses by segment with allowance for the fact that some segments
of the portfolio are more prone to large losses than others.
Consider the actual experience over a long term period. This period should be
at least 5-10 years but longer periods may be necessary for either small or long-
tail portfolios
Make adjustments to the frequency based on any known changes in
underwriting standard or business mix. For example, adjustments will need to be
made to the frequency if a significant proportion of the claims historically
occurred in an industry that the insurer is no longer writing.
For portfolios where there are only a limited number of large claims, the Actuary
can estimate a claims frequency and then use a Poisson distribution in order to
estimate the likelihood of the actual experience being in line with the
assumption.
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An allowance has to be made to allow for extreme large losses that have not
been observed in the available data
Where possible, the Actuary should check the selected assumptions against
available industry data. The Actuary, in collaboration with the Portfolio Manager,
will need to form a view on whether the differences between the industry data
and the data of the insurer are fortuitous or due to differences in the portfolio mix
or underwriting standards
When allocating the large losses by segment, the Actuary should consider
That the standard methods for working losses such as GLMs and multi-way
segmentation do not work well because the number of claims is small
Allocating large losses in line with working losses may not be appropriate
particularly for portfolios or segments within a portfolio whose primary exposure is
low frequency, high severity events.
Sum Insured – policies with sums insured below the large loss limit cannot incur a
large loss. In addition, the larger the sum insured, the larger the average claim
size will be
Industry – some industries are known to have a higher risk and the insurer may
already have a classification which identifies high hazard industries. A larger
proportion of the large loss costs could be allocated to this segment
Recommendation 36: That the Actuary understands the impact that a small change
in the assumptions around large losses can have on the assessment of profitability.
Basing the rate index on the technical premium will provide the insurer with a clear
understanding of any movements in profitability due to changes in premium and
changes in mix of business. We note that as the metric is based on actuarial
judgement and assumptions, changes in the assumptions can result in restatements
in the historical rate index. These changes will require careful communication to
ensure portfolio managers have a clear understanding of the reason for these
changes and that they do not impact the credibility of the metric.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 37: That the Actuary invest time to develop a regular metric
which compares the actual premium and statistical premium which is then used as a
lead indicator to
Machine learning is likely to be best used on SME portfolios for insurers with a larger
volume of business as the method requires significant amounts of data, a reasonably
stable performance and a large range of rating factors.
Recommendation 38: That the Actuary puts together a pilot to test the value of
machine learning on a large homogenous SME portfolio such as Business Packages
or Commercial Motor. Possible areas for a pilot may include:
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 40: That the Actuary develop a framework which enables the
monitoring of the emerging experience of claims reported and incurred against the
undeveloped projection, calculated by combining the technical model with the
development factors
The typical steps in projecting the claim cost over the underwriting year for pricing
purposes are
Estimate the IBNR/IBNER over the modelled period. Some methods that can be
used include
Allocation of reserving IBNR/IBNER to the portfolio – although the Actuary
needs to understand whether the assumptions behind the modelling are
suitable for pricing
Develop separate IBNR/IBNER Models for pricing – using standard IBNR
modelling techniques such as the chain ladder, PPCI, PPCF or PCE
methods. The Actuary should understand the drivers of any significant
differences between the pricing IBNR/IBNER and that calculated in the
reserving models.
Calibrate the modelled cost to the actual experience
Project the model forward to the underwriting year allowing for future inflation
and any expected underwriting or environmental changes including tort
temperature that will impact the claims cost.
Recommendation 41: That the Actuary understands and communicates the level of
uncertainty that exists in the technical premium due to the estimation of IBNR and
the projection to future underwriting years
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
The most prominent example of a latent claim event is asbestos where the total cost
is expected to be in the order of $10 billionix in Australia in current dollars. In addition
to asbestos, there have been a number of other smaller latent claim events
including sexual molestation, silicosis and prolonged exposure to loud noise.
Potential future latent claims events that have been discussed in the industry include
nano-technology, genetically modified foods and mobile phones. However, it is
likely that the next latent claim will arise from a cause that is yet to be identified.
Recommendation 43: The Actuary needs to be able to set a price for latent claims
and develop monitoring tools which assist to identify emerging latent claims so that
appropriate pricing and underwriting action are taken as early as possible. This
monitoring should include
Investigation of all claims which are reported more than 10 years after the
exposure occurs
Ensuring that there is regular communication between claims, underwriting
and actuarial across the key long tail classes
Keeping up to date around the emergence of latent claims in other countries
Reviewing advances in the legal and medical community
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Liability tort law reforms in each state following the Ipp Reportx, implemented
mainly in 2003
Changes in Worker’s Compensation law in Western Australia in 2011
The Bridgecorp decision which even though it was made in NZ is also relevant in
NSW, ACT and NTxi
Recommendation 44: That the Actuary working in the long tailed classes needs to
be aware of all legislative changes or significant court decisions that will impact the
portfolio. This will require
Provide a detailed review of the legislation both pre and post change
Review of available industry publications from insurance bodies, law firms and
actuarial consultancies
Identify whether the changes will impact each segment of the portfolio
consistently
Review a sample of existing claims and have experienced claims staff assess
the expected cost under the new legislation
Define the ongoing monitoring which will follow the implementation of the
reforms to refine the assessment of the impact if the experience emerges
differently than expected
Recommendation 45: That the Actuary drives the formation of a cross functional
team to review the potential impact of legislative changes. The team should
continue to work together following the implementation of the legislative changes
to monitor the actual impact of the changes.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 46: That the Actuary recognises that the business written in any
particular quarter is not reflective of the overall portfolio mix. For example, to
determine portfolio level premium growth the Actuary should compare the premium
to the same period in the previous year or to explicitly adjust for the different risks
written by quarter.
Recommendation 47: That the Actuary has a strong understanding of the annual
business cycle of the insurer and when pricing analysis needs to be provided to be
implemented prior to the June volumes
There is a high level of seasonality for the Crop portfolio where all business is initially
attached around August with the insured having the ability to make changes to the
expected yield and price of the crop until mid-October. The overall yield and price
will depend on the weather and can vary significantly from year to year resulting in
premium volumes varying by up to 100% from year to year. In addition, some insurers
will defer payment of the premium until after the harvest.
Recommendation 48: That the Actuary considers whether the volume and the
seasonality of Crop business will have an impact on any analysis of the insurer.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
Recommendation 49: That the Actuary understands the typical adjustments that are
made to the policy premiums at the end of the year and, if the premium adjustment
is significant, develops the written premium to an expected ultimate premium. This
development will need to take into account any changes in economic conditions.
There are some sections of some Commercial portfolios where the seasonality is
significantly more pronounced than in the overall book. One such example is the
Machinery Breakdown section of Country Pack - where the machinery insured has
limited use during the winter months but is heavily used during the summer months
resulting in the loss ratio during the summer months being around twice that of the
winter months.
Recommendation 50: That the Actuary appreciates the differences between the
true earning pattern and what is used in both financial and management
information reporting to ensure that the business has clarity over the underlying
performance of the portfolio so that they are able to make effective business
decisions.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
We note that the Fire Service Levy percentage varies from year to year and that if
the Fire Service Levy is not excluded from the premium, that an increase in the Fire
Service Levy charged will cause a reduction in the loss ratio as well as an increase in
the written premium potentially leading to an incorrect understanding of the trends
in the underlying business.
Recommendation 51: That the Actuary excludes all taxes including Fire Service Levy
from all analysis and performance measures.
We note that the impact of having higher taxes on the property sections, results in
insurers being more comfortable in the liability portfolio cross-subsidising a property
portfolio. This is particularly the case for the package products where a reduction of
$100 in premium in the liability section offset by an increase in premium of $100 for
the fire section in the rural area of Victoria would result in an additional cost to the
insured of $96.8.
We note that for Victoria from 1 July 2013, the Fire Service Levy will be replaced by a
fairer and more equitable property based levy and that the NSW government is
currently undertaking a review which is currently expected to result in a
recommendation to a move to a property based charge. Tasmania is the only other
state who currently uses a Fire Service Levy.
Recommendation 52: That the Actuary is aware of the level of cross subsidy and
that the existing tax regime is likely to mean that companies are more comfortable
with a higher level of cross subsidisation.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
original insurance policy.” xii We note that the insurer is not required to take up the
ARPC cover and has the option of either reinsuring terrorism risk elsewhere or
retaining the risk. The ARPC covers Commercial Property, Business Interruption and
Public Liability but currently does not charge any reinsurance premium for the Public
Liability cover.
Recommendation 53: That the Actuary treats the premium collected by the ARPC in
the same manner as a typical reinsurance premium.
Recommendation 54: That the Actuary separate Burning Cost Policies in all analysis
and reporting.
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A Practical Guide to Commercial Insurance Pricing
9. Conclusion
In conclusion, the pricing of Commercial insurance is a challenging but rewarding
area for an Actuary to develop a career. The key recommendations of this paper
as to how the Actuary can be most effective in being able to influence business
outcomes in Commercial insurance are:
ihttp://www.apra.gov.au/GI/Publications/Documents/GI%20Quarterly%20Performance%2020
120630.pdf
iihttp://www.apra.gov.au/GI/Publications/Documents/IGIS%2020120630.pdf
iiihttp://www.anz.com.au/documents/business/commercialcard/ANZ-Business-Package-
Policy.pdf
ivhttp://www.bricher.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/QBE-Steadfast-Business-Wording-
QM485-0610.pdf
vhttp://www.finity.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/GIS08_1a_Paper_PIDO.pdf
vihttp://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/12/1100227582113.html
viihttp://www.insurancenews.com.au/local/aon-settles-with-anu-over-mt-stromlo-loss
viiihttp://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/scjudgments/2007nswsc.nsf/6ccf7431c546464bca2570e600
1a45d2/5aa797eb52378aecca2573a200770cd5?OpenDocument
ixhttp://www.apra.gov.au/GI/Publications/Documents/IGIS%2020120630.pdf
x http://revofneg.treasury.gov.au/content/Report2/PDF/Law_Neg_Final.pdf
xihttp://www.zurich.com.au/zportal/cs/ContentServer?pagename=GroupSite/Page/ThreeCo
lumnLeadImage&cid=1305872697337&p=991803150863
xiihttp://www.arpc.gov.au/?/qanda#premiums
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