This study shows that managers of short-term insurers may improve their financial results if they can identify and manage the factors that are critical to their financial results. The development and application of the concept of critical success factors are therefore used as a basis for this study. The study reviews the functions performed by short-term insurers, focusing on the effect these functions have on their cash flows. Selection and pricing of risk are discussed in detail. The underwriting cycle in South Africa, and several possible causes of the cycle are investigated. Reinsurance, claims handling and rilanagement expenses are important components of the cash flows of short-term insurers and are therefore examined in detail. The optimum risk level at various combinations of underwriting and investment income is empirically tested, using the financial results of several insurers. The study investigates different approaches to the measurement of financial success of insurers, and the return on shareholders' funds is found to provide the fairest and most reliable method. Empirical comparisons are made on the financial results of the insurers that participated in the study to distinguish between those that are financially successful and those that are not. To discover what the industry consider to be their critical financial success factors, a postal survey was done of key decision makers in the South African short-term insurance industry. Respondents identified several success factors, but did not include some success factors discovered during the review of the literature. Respondents apparently experienced difficulty in separating strategic issues from operational ones. The survey revealed that the pricing of risk is problematic for short-term insurers. The importance of the investment function is also underestimated by the industry. The study concludes that the combined systematic risk of the investment and underwriting portfolios is a critical success factor, along with the capital base of the insurer, the ability of the insurer to use the leverage provided by using policyholders' funds as free reserves and the size and direction of an insurer's cash flows. / Business Management / D. Com (Business Management)

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Dans le secteur de l’assurance, les dernières évolutions règlementaires et des normes comptables vont dans le sens de la standardisation de la gestion des risques au sein des organismes. Dans ce contexte, l’objectif principal de ma thèse est de proposer différentes méthodologies d’évaluation et d’analyse des risques dans ce secteur. La première partie de ce manuscrit traite de la problématique de provisionnement individuel en non-vie. Je propose des adaptions d’algorithmes d’apprentissage automatique ensemblistes et de certaines métriques de performance pour l’estimation des durées des sinistres ainsi que des charges sinistres ultimes en présence de don-nées censurées à droite. L’application de ces méthodes à des données réelles de contrats de prêts ou de contrats de prévoyance collective conduit à des estimations plus performantes et plus robustes des paramètres considérés. La deuxième partie présente une approche d’estimation de choc à un an sur des paramètres spécifiques à l’entité (Undertaking Specific Parameters) du module santé assimilable la vie du pilier 1 de la formule standard de la norme Solvabilité II. L’utilisation de la crédibilité américaine (ou crédibilité à variation limitée) permet la prise en compte partielle des contraintes de disponibilité des données d’expérience (volumétrie et profondeur d’historique) lors du calibrage des chocs. A titre d’illustration, j’ai appliqué cette approche aux risques d’incidence et de maintien (ou de rétablissement) des garanties d’incapacité et d’invalidité en arrêt de travail d’un portefeuille de contrats de prêts. Les résultats obtenus montrent des baisses significatives des be-soins de capitaux de solvabilité requis (SCR) du risque de souscription par rapport à la formule standard. La troisième partie est une étude descriptive des calculs de la formule standard pour l’évaluation du besoin de fonds propres économiques du risque de dépendance. Elle permet de mettre en évidence les insuffisances de la norme et de proposer des pistes d’améliorations en vue d’une meilleure prise en compte des spécificités de ce risque. Enfin, dans la dernière partie du manuscrit, je propose une étude comparative des préférences d’attitudes face au risque dans le secteur financier, notamment la banque et l’assurance. Il s’agit d’une analyse empirique menée dans trois zones géographiques (Amérique, Europe et Afrique) afin de mesurer les liens et les différences entre les profils d’attitude face au risque et certaines variables sociodémographiques / In the insurance sector, the latest regulatory developments and accounting standards are in line with the standardization of risk management within organizations. In this context, the main objec-tive of my thesis is to propose different methodologies for risk evaluation and analysis in this sec-tor. The first part of this manuscript deals with the problem of individual non-life reserving. I pro-posed adaptations of machine learning algorithms and some performance metrics for the estima-tion of the durations of the claims as well as the ultimate claims in the presence of right censored data. The application of these methods to property and consumer loans insurance contracts or group protection contracts leads to better and more robust estimates of the parameters consid-ered. The second part presents a one-year shock estimation approach on entity-specific parame-ters (Undertaking Specific Parameters) of the life-sustaining health module of Pillar 1 of the Solven-cy II standard formula. The use of American credibility (or limited variation credibility) allows partial consideration of the availability constraints of data (volume and historical depth of data) when calibrating shocks. By way of illustration, I applied this approach to incidence and recovery (or non-recovery) of incapacity and disability risks. The results obtained show significant decreases in sol-vency capital requirements (SCR) of underwriting risk need compared to the standard formula cal-culation. The third part is a descriptive study of the calculations of the standard formula for eco-nomic solvency capital need of long term care risk. The main purpose is to highlight the inadequa-cies of the standard formula and to suggest ways of improving them in order to better take into account the specificities of this risk. Finally, in the last part of the manuscript, I proposed a compar-ative study of risk attitude preferences in the financial sector, including banking and insurance. This is an empirical analysis conducted in three geographical areas (America, Europe and Africa) to measure the links and differences between risk attitude profiles and sociodemographic variables

This thesis covers, in detail, theoretical background of micro-level stochastic model, which includes definition and properties of non-homogeneous Poisson process. This the- ory is then applied to real data generated by MTPL portfolio. Estimates of provisions under micro-level stochastic model are calculated using ordinary Monte Carlo simula- tion method. Results obtained from micro-level stochastic model are compared to Mack Chain-ladder estimates. 1