NATURAL HEDGING STRATEGIES FOR LIFE INSURERS: IMPACT OF PRODUCT DESIGN AND RISK MEASURE

Natural hedging allows life insurers to manage long-term longevity and investment risks of life annuity products through offsetting risks in life insurance products. Benefits include a reduction in risk-based capital. We use stochastic mortality and interest rate models to assess life insurance and annuity capital requirements and to quantify the benefits of natural hedging for a range of different types of life insurance product designs and risk measures based on probability of insurer solvency. We show that level-premium life insurance products with a medium duration (around 20-30 years) can better hedge annuity products than whole life products. Renewable term life insurance products have less hedge effectiveness than level-premium term insurance. Results vary with the risk measure used, with the 1-year horizon Solvency II risk measure showing lower natural hedging benefits of life insurance compared to multiple-period risk measures.