General Insurance Convention 1977
Hythe, 1977
The actuary in general insurance. - General Insurance Study Group. 4 pages.
The discussion on this subject will be divided into two parts: firstly, what is the role of the actuary in general insurance; and secondly, what more should we in the General Insurance Study Group be doing to help the profession achieve this role?
Experience rating. - General Insurance Study Group. 14 pages.
For this paper it was decided to take as a guideline, not necessarily a definition, that experience rating means, "The modification of a rate-book (we prefer to call it a manual) premium to give some recognition to the observed experience being significantly different from the expected."
This guideline still leaves a further sub-division, as to whether the credit or surcharge for experience is to be given at the time of quoting, the premium or as a rebate or extra premium after the risk period has expired and the experience corresponding to the risk period has become known. The latter known in the United States as retrospective rating,or more simply retro-rating we refer to only briefly and leave for further development to another occasion. Thus the study group finally decided to look solely at the problem of modifying the premium to be charged by way of an increase or decrease to the manual premium at the time of quotation.
Financial planning. - General Insurance Study Group. 47 pages.
The first section of this report is a useful paper showing how similar blocks of business would appear using one-year and three-year accounting conventions. A second section is a look at the sort of profit objectives which could be set and how such objectives might vary by class, including any specific problems relating to expense and investment income allocation.
The third section of the report looks at a computer projection model and the "systems environment in which this model is used", emphasising that the environment and the lines of responsibility are crucial in the practical use of any model.
Finally there is consideration of how an insurer should set its investment policy and what in practice the seven quoted composites appear to have done.
Technical reserves. - General Insurance Study Group. 59 pages.
Following the suggestions made at the York conference, members of the working party have this year produced a number of separate short reports on practical aspects concerning technical reserves. These papers should not be regarded as definitive but more as discussion documents.
It was felt that one way to build on the past work of this working party would be to obtain sets of actual office data and use these as illustrations, with commentaries of the application of various methods for reserve calculations (which have previously been discussed mainly in theoretical terms). Three such reports are presented dealing with motor, liability and short term reinsurance business.