Notes
Outline
Pricing and Managing Derivative Risk
Risk Measurement and Modeling
Howard Zail, Partner
Risk Measurement and Modeling
Laying the Foundations
Establish business-driven risk management goals
Identifying risks
Risk Management Metrics
Value-at-Risk
Risk-Adjusted Performance Measurement
Others
Adjusting metrics designed for banking industry for use in the insurance industry
Modeling Approach
Parametric Modeling, Distributional Approaches
Historic Simulation
Stress testing techniques
Avoiding the Pitfalls
Stochastic vs. Parameter Risk
Correlation risk
Comparing the “Statistical” and “Market” price of risk
Communicating Results to Target Audiences
Laying the Foundations
Establish Business-Driven
Risk Management Goals
Modeling process must provide practical answers to questions like:
How much capital is required to support business?
Where should we be investing our equity?
What risks should we keep and what risks should we pass to others?
How do we compare different types of risks on a consistent basis?
What instruments best hedge our risks?
Identify The Key Risks
Financial Market Risk
Interest rate risk
Equity
Liability option
Credit Risk
Non financial market (fixed income, credit derivatives)
Counterparty risk (credit risk exposure to reinsurers, OTC counterparty)
Operational Risk
Underwriting
Liquidity
Risk Management Metrics
Definition of Value-at-Risk
JP Morgan Definition:
   Value at Risk is a measure of the maximum potential change in value of a portfolio of  financial instruments over a pre-set horizon.
or
   VaR answers the question:
How much can I lose with x% probability over a given time horizon?
What is Value-at-Risk
Uses of VaR
Risk reporting
Portfolio optimization
Component of performance measurement & product pricing
Capital allocation
Limit setting
Deriving economic capital
Example of VaR Risk Reporting
Goldman Sachs daily VaR (95% level)
Pros and Cons of VaR
Simple to understand
Rating agencies are beginning to use the methodology
Widely used in banking industry
Accepted by banking regulators
Requires a lot of work to implement firm-wide
Relatively new to insurance industry
Not yet accepted by insurance regulators
Various technical problems
VaR and Economic Capital
EC is the amount of capital that an institution would devote to support its financial activities in the absence of regulatory constraints
VaR can be used as a proxy for economic capital with some adjustments:
Time horizon
Confidence level
Targeted credit Rating
Present Value
Other Risk Measures
Variance / Standard Deviation
Downside variance
Maximum Possible Loss
Shortfall measures / tail outcomes
Why Analyze Economic Capital
Regulatory capital (e.g. RBC) may be too high or too low relative to an institutions risk profile
Actual capital held is rarely the most efficient amount of capital
Risk Adjusted Performance Measurement (RAPM)
(Single period model)
An Example of RAPM
An Example of RAPM (cont’d)
Traditional financial analysis suggests that we should remain unhedged:
IRRunhedged > IRRhedged
NPVunhedged > NPVhedged
An Example of RAPM (cont’d)
RAPM analysis suggests otherwise:
RAPMunhedged = Profit / VaR = 5 / 16 = 31.25%
RAPMhedged    = Profit / VaR = 2 / 4 = 50%
RAPMunhedged <  RAPMhedged
Adjusting Metrics for the Insurance Industry
The one day or week horizons used in banking industry are not appropriate for insurance industry
Very difficult to measure correlations between risk categories
Changes in volatility are important over longer term horizons
Modeling Approaches
Types of models
Parametric Modeling
Closed-form and monte-carlo simulation
Historic modeling
Stress Testing Techniques
Back-testing of model on historic data
In sample and out-of-sample
Scenario Analysis (or Dynamic Financial Analysis)
VaR Difficulties
Determining:
Confidence level
Time interval
Stochastic vs. Parameter Risk
Correlation risk
Comparing the “Statistical” and “Market” price of risk
Communicating Results to Target Audiences
Does not incorporate all types of risk
Risk management is part art and not just science
Summary of Benefits
Provides managers with better understanding of:
sources of risk
interactions between different types of risks
Enables comparison of different types of risk
Forms a basis for risk-return performance analysis