In recent years, general risk measures have played an important role in risk management in both finance and insurance industry. As a consequence, there is an increasing number of research on optimal reinsurance problems using risk measures as yard sticks beyond the classical expected utility framework. In this thesis, the stop-loss reinsurance is first shown to be an optimal contract under law-invariant convex risk measures via a new simple geometric argument. This similar approach is then used to tackle the same optimal reinsurance problem under Value at Risk and Conditional Tail Expectation; it is interesting to note that, instead of stop-loss reinsurances, insurance layers serve as the optimal solution in these cases. These two results hint that law-invariant convex risk measure may be better and more robust to expected larger claims than Value at Risk and Conditional Tail Expectation even though they are more commonly used. In addition, the problem of optimal reinsurance design for a basket of n insurable risks is studied. Without assuming any particular dependence structure, a minimax optimal reinsurance decision formulation for the problem has been successfully proposed. To solve it, the least favorable dependence structure is first identified, and then the stop-loss reinsurances are shown to minimize a general law-invariant convex risk measure of the total retained risk. Sufficient condition for ordering the optimal deductibles are also obtained. Next, a Principal-Agent model is adopted to describe a monopolistic reinsurance market with adverse selection. Under the asymmetry of information, the reinsurer (the principal) aims to maximize the average profit by selling a tailor-made reinsurance to every insurer (agent) from a (huge) family with hidden characteristics. In regard to Basel Capital Accord, each insurer uses Value at Risk as the risk assessment, and also takes the right to choose different risk tolerances. By utilizing the special features of insurance layers, their optimality as the first-best strategy over all feasible reinsurances is proved. Also, the same optimal reinsurance screening problem is studied under other subclass of reinsurances: (i) deductible contracts; (ii) quota-share reinsurances; and (iii) reinsurance contracts with convex indemnity, with the aid of indirect utility functions. In particular, the optimal indirect utility function is shown to be of the stop-loss form under both classes (i) and (ii); while on the other hand, its non-stop-loss nature under class (iii) is revealed. Lastly, a class of nonzero-sum stochastic differential reinsurance games between two insurance companies is studied. Each insurance company is assumed to maximize the difference of the opponent’s terminal surplus from that of its own by properly arranging its reinsurance schedule. The surplus process of each insurance company is modeled by a mixed regime-switching Cramer-Lundberg approximation. It is a diffusion risk process with coefficients being modulated by both a continuous-time finite-state Markov Chain and another diffusion process; and correlations among these surplus processes are allowed. In contrast to the traditional HJB approach, BSDE method is used and an explicit Nash equilibrium is derived. / published_or_final_version / Mathematics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Master / Master of Philosophy