Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance

Insurance companies need to calculate solvency capital requirements in order to ensure that they can meet their future obligations to policyholders and beneficiaries. The solvency capital requirement is a risk management tool essential for addressing extreme catastrophic events that result in a high...

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Main Authors: Dias, Alexandra, Ismail, Isaudin, Zhang, Aihua
Format: Article
Language:en
Published: Mdpi 2025
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Online Access:http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/12729/1/J19717_4cd9f21a1f1fed99d88bd00bf076fea1.pdf
http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/12729/
https://doi.org/10.3390/risks13030044
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_version_ 1836859130387628032
author Dias, Alexandra
Ismail, Isaudin
Zhang, Aihua
author_facet Dias, Alexandra
Ismail, Isaudin
Zhang, Aihua
author_sort Dias, Alexandra
building UTHM Library
collection Institutional Repository
content_provider Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
content_source UTHM Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
description Insurance companies need to calculate solvency capital requirements in order to ensure that they can meet their future obligations to policyholders and beneficiaries. The solvency capital requirement is a risk management tool essential for addressing extreme catastrophic events that result in a high number of possibly interdependent claims. This paper studies the problem of aggregating the risks coming from several insurance business lines and analyses the effect of reinsurance on the level of risk. Our starting point is to use a hierarchical risk aggregation method which was initially based on two-dimensional elliptical copulas. We then propose the use of copulas from the Archimedean family and a mixture of different copulas. Our results show that a mixture of copulas can provide a better fit to the data than an individual copula and consequently avoid over- or underestimation of the capital requirement of an insurance company. We also investigate the significance of reinsurance in reducing the insurance company’s business risk and its effect on diversification. The results show that reinsurance does not always reduce the level of risk, but can also reduce the effect of diversification for insurance companies with multiple business lines.
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spelling my.uthm.eprints-127292025-06-26T00:09:58Z http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/12729/ Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance Dias, Alexandra Ismail, Isaudin Zhang, Aihua HG Finance Insurance companies need to calculate solvency capital requirements in order to ensure that they can meet their future obligations to policyholders and beneficiaries. The solvency capital requirement is a risk management tool essential for addressing extreme catastrophic events that result in a high number of possibly interdependent claims. This paper studies the problem of aggregating the risks coming from several insurance business lines and analyses the effect of reinsurance on the level of risk. Our starting point is to use a hierarchical risk aggregation method which was initially based on two-dimensional elliptical copulas. We then propose the use of copulas from the Archimedean family and a mixture of different copulas. Our results show that a mixture of copulas can provide a better fit to the data than an individual copula and consequently avoid over- or underestimation of the capital requirement of an insurance company. We also investigate the significance of reinsurance in reducing the insurance company’s business risk and its effect on diversification. The results show that reinsurance does not always reduce the level of risk, but can also reduce the effect of diversification for insurance companies with multiple business lines. Mdpi 2025 Article PeerReviewed text en http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/12729/1/J19717_4cd9f21a1f1fed99d88bd00bf076fea1.pdf Dias, Alexandra and Ismail, Isaudin and Zhang, Aihua (2025) Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance. Risks, 13 (44). pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.3390/risks13030044
spellingShingle HG Finance
Dias, Alexandra
Ismail, Isaudin
Zhang, Aihua
Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance
title Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance
title_full Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance
title_fullStr Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance
title_full_unstemmed Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance
title_short Copula-Based Risk Aggregation and the Significance of Reinsurance
title_sort copula-based risk aggregation and the significance of reinsurance
topic HG Finance
url http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/12729/1/J19717_4cd9f21a1f1fed99d88bd00bf076fea1.pdf
http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/12729/
https://doi.org/10.3390/risks13030044
url_provider http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/