Stochastic evaluation of life insurance contracts: Model point on asset trajectories and measurement of the error related to aggregation

In this paper,(1) we are interested in the optimization of computing time when using Monte-Carlo simulations for the pricing of the embedded options in life insurance contracts. We propose a very simple method which consists in grouping the trajectories of the initial process of the asset according to a quantile. The measurement of the distance between the initial process and the discretized process is realized by the L2-norm. L2 distance decreases according to the number of trajectories of the discretized process. The discretized process is then used in the valuation of the life insurance contracts. We note that a wise choice of the discretized process enables us to correctly estimate the price of a European option. Finally, the error due to the valuation of a contract in Euro using the discretized process can be reduced to less than 5%. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.