Thesis deals with analysis of the life child's insurance product of company Allianz pojišťovna a.s. and its comparsion with offer of chosen commercial insurance companies. The thesis result is a proposal for improvement of this company´s life child's insurance product offer.

This Master´s thesis work analyses problems connected with supplementary pension insurance and life insurance of Respono, a.s. company. It includes a draft of choice of an adequate pension fond, life insurance and proposal of employerś contribution payments of penzion insurance and life insurance for individual employees with the purpose to eliminate company costs.

The diploma thesis is focused on financing of construction of a house. It defines and analyzes the financial products and their mutual combinations, particularly mortgage loans and building savings. It deals with their comparison with aim to find the optimal alternative of financing of the model situation. This thesis should allow orientation in housing market for anyone interested in building a house.

Cette thèse se compose de trois articles empiriques appliquant à divers sujets des techniques d'économétrie sur données de panel. L'article principal étudie l'évolution de la transmission des prix des trois principales céréales (blé, maïs, riz) des marchés internationaux vers les producteurs domestiques pour 52 pays sur la période 1970-2013, et cherche à identifier les principaux facteurs expliquant l'hétérogénéité des pass-through. Le second article mesure l'élasticité du trafic aérien au produit intérieur brut dans le monde et met en évidence la grande stabilité de la relation tant dans le temps que d'une région à l'autre. Enfin, le troisième article modélise le mécanisme de fixation du taux de rendement servi par les assureurs français à leurs clients sur les produits d'assurance-vie. / This dissertation is composed of three empirical articles resorting to econometric methods in panel data analysis to address various research questions. The main article investigates the evolution of the level of price transmission for the three major cereals (wheat, maize and rice) from the international commodity markets down to the local producers for 52 countries between 1970 and 2013 while attempting to identify the main drivers of the heterogeneity in pass-through. The second article measures the elasticity of air-traffic to GDP around the world and demonstrates that the relationship is very stable across régions and through time. Eventually, the third article models the mechanisms through which French life-insurers set the rate of return they pay annually to their policyholders.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to apprise the reader with a basic life insur- ance projection method which is used for the valuation of insurance company's liabilities. The basic projection method can be extremely time consuming in practise so another two variance reduction methods and their combination are presented to obtain either more precise liabilities estimation, or to reduce the time required for the projection. The presented methods are antithetic variate method, control-variate method and their combination later called integrated control-variate method. The final outcome of the thesis is simulation experi- ment which evaluates the liabilities of the group of policies and comparison of the presented variance reduction methods. 1

[pt] Nesta tese, propomos quatro modelos dinâmicos para ajudar as seguradoras e fundos de pensão a medir e gerencias seus fatores de risco e seus planos de anuidade. Nos primeiros dois ensaios, propomos modelos de previsão de ganhos de longevidade de uma população, que é um importante fator de risco. No primeiro artigo, um modelo de séries temporais multivariado usando a abordagem SUTSE (seemingly unrelated time series equation) é proposto para prever ganhos de longevidade e taxas de mortalidade. No segundo artigo, um modelo estrutural multivariado com tendências estocásticas comuns é proposto para prever os ganhos de longevidade de uma população com uma curta série temporal de taxas de mortalidade, usando as informações de uma população relacionada, para qual uma longa série temporal de taxas de mortalidade é disponível. No terceiro artigo, outro importante fator de risco é modelado – taxas de cancelamento. Apresentamos um modelo estocástico multiestágio para previsão das taxas de cancelamento usando simulação de Monte Carlo depois de uma sequência de ajustes GLM, ARMA-GARCH e cópula multivariada ser executada. No quarto artigo, assumindo a necessidade de se avaliar as opções embutidas para manter a solvência dos planos de anuidade, propomos um modelo para mensuração das opções embutidas nos planos unit-linkeds brasileiros. / [en] In this thesis we propose four dynamic models to help life insurers and pension plans to measure and manage their risk factors and annuity plans. In the first two essays, we propose models to forecast longevity gains of a population, which is an important risk factor. In the first paper, a multivariate time series model using the seemingly unrelated time series equation (SUTSE) framework is proposed to forecast longevity gains and mortality rates. In the second paper, a multivariate structural time series model with common stochastic trends is proposed to forecast longevity gains of a population with a short time series of observed mortality rates, using the information of a related population for which longer mortality time series exist. In the third paper, another important risk factor is modeled – surrender rates. We propose a multi-stage stochastic model to forecast them using Monte Carlo simulation after a sequence of GLM, ARMA-GARCH and multivariate copula fitting is executed. Assuming the importance of the embedded options valuation to maintain the solvency of annuity plans, in the fourth paper we propose a model for evaluating the value of embedded options in the Brazilian unit-linked plans.

Most non-life insurers and many creditors use regressions, more specifically Generalized Linear Models (GLM), to price their liabilities. One limitation with GLMs is that interactions between predictors are handled manually, which makes finding interactions a tedious and time-consuming task. This increases the cost of rate making and, more importantly, actuaries can miss important interactions resulting in sub-optimal customer prices. Several papers have shown that Gradient Tree Boosting can outperform GLMs in insurance pricing since it handles interactions automatically. Insurers and creditors are however reluctant to use so-called ”Black-Box” solutions for both regulatory and technical reasons. Tree-based methods have been used to identify pricing errors in regressions, albeit only as ad-hoc solutions. The authors instead propose a systematic approach to automatically identify and evaluate interactions between predictors before adding them to a traditional GLM. The model can be used in three different ways: Firstly, it can create a table of statistically significant candidate interactions to add to a GLM. Secondly, it can automatically and iteratively add new interactions to an old GLM until no more statistically significant interactions can be found. Lastly, it can automatically create a new GLM without an existing pricing model. All approaches are tested on two motor insurance data sets from a Nordic P&C insurer and the results show that all methods outperform the original GLMs. Although the two iterative modes perform better than the first, insurers are recommended to mainly use the first mode since this results in a reasonable trade-off between automating processes and leveraging actuaries’ professional judgment. / De flesta skadeförsäkringsbolag och många långivare använder regressioner, mer specifikt generaliserade linjära modeller (GLM), för att prissätta sina skulder. En begräsning med GLM:er är att interaktioner mellan exogena variabler hanteras manuellt, vilket innebär att hanteringen av dessa är tidskrävande. Detta påverkar försäkringsbolags lönsamhet på flera sätt. För det första ökar kostnaderna för att skapa tariffer och för det andra kan aktuarier missa viktiga interaktioner, vilket resulterar i suboptimala kundpriser. Tidigare forskning visar att Gradient Boosting kan överträffa GLM:er inom försäkringsprissättning eftersom denna metod hanterar interaktioner automatiskt. Försäkringsbolag och kreditgivare är dock motvilliga till att använda så kallade ”Black-box-lösningar” på grund av både regulatoriska och tekniska skäl. Trädbaserade metoder har tidigare använts för att hitta felprissättningar i regressioner, dock endast genom situationsanpassade lösningar. Författarna föreslår i stället en systematisk metod för att automatiskt identifiera och evaluera interaktioner innan de inkluderas i en traditionell GLM. Modellen kan användas på tre olika sätt: Först och främst kan den användas för att skapa en tabell med statistiskt signifikanta interaktioner att addera till en existerande GLM. Utöver detta kan den iterativt och automatiskt lägga till sådana interaktioner tills inga fler återstår. Slutligen kan modellen också användas för att skapa en helt ny GLM från grunden, utan en existerande prissättningsmodell. Metoderna testas på två motorförsäkringsdataset från ett nordiskt skadeförsäkringsbolag och resultaten visar att alla överträffar originalregressionen. Även om de två iterativa metoderna överträffar den första metoden rekommenderas försäkringsbolag att använda den första metoden. Detta eftersom den resulterar i en rimlig avvägning mellan att automatisera processer och att nyttja aktuariers omdömesförmåga.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to apprise the reader with a basic life insur- ance projection method which is used for the valuation of insurance company's liabilities. The basic projection method can be extremely time consuming in practise so another two variance reduction methods and their combination are presented to obtain either more precise liabilities estimation, or to reduce the time required for the projection. The presented methods are antithetic variate method, control-variate method and their combination later called integrated control-variate method. The final outcome of the thesis is simulation experi- ment which evaluates the liabilities of the group of policies and comparison of the presented variance reduction methods. 1

Life insurance policies are not equally profitable is sense of expected value. In practice, profitability is an output of complex cash flow models, which need utilizing special systems and the run time of such calculation can be significant if number of policies is high. Therefore we consider variables, which change most frequently, stimulate the profitability model with several values of these variables and then we search for a regression model to explain the changes. We apply Gamma regression on the data. But what if there exist some policies which are negative? Then we determine these policies with logistic regression applied on data censored to the binary form. Loss of these policies is modelled using symmetrical Gamma model. These three models, when considered together, can be viewed as a single model, which is a generalization of the well known zero inflated count model. The most interesting part of inference in such model is diagnostics. We show that the basic types of residuals - Pearson, deviance and quantile - can be defined. We also build an ordinary linear model and we compare utility of these two approaches. While building models, we meet various statistical issues like dimension reduction of yield curve or dispersion proportional to sum insured. 1

In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine the evolution of corporate leverage of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 1994 to 2016. Analysis of the data set is organized around a sample of 126 listed companies across twelve sub-sector industries, namely, Banks, Financial Services, Life Insurance, Fixed Line Telecommunications, Nonlife Insurance, Health Care Equipment and Services, Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology, Media, Technology Hardware and Equipment, Software and Computer Services, Electronic and Electrical Equipment and Support Services. 621 delisted companies were also briefly analysed to eliminate survivorship bias. Results of multiple regressions using two primary leverage measures and six commonly used determinants of capital structure were varied. Tangibility and growth were negatively related to debt while cost of debt was positively related to debt. Firm size, profitability and corporate tax rate yielded a varied relationship with corporate leverage. Only the growth capital structure determinant showed statistical significance. The overall findings indicate a rise in corporate leverage that coincides in tandem with major local and international economic events.