Until a few years ago I concentrated my attention on workers' compensa tion programs in the United States and Canada. Because the United States has 52 programs and Canada has eight, I was exposed to a diversity of approaches that caused me to believe that few other approaches existed. Since 1984 I have become more aware of what the rest of the world has been doing and discovered that my knowledge needed to be broadened significantly. The trigger action was a 1984 faculty research exchange agreement between Keio University in Tokyo and the University of Minnesota that made it possible for me...

Two different applications have been considered, automobile claims from Massachusetts and health expenses from the Netherlands. We have fit 11 different distributions to these data. The distributions are conveniently nested within a single four parameter distribution, the generalized beta of the second type. This relationship facilitates analysis and comparisons. In both cases the GB2 provided the best fit and the Burr 3 is the best three parameter model. In the case of automobile claims, the flexibility of the GB2 provides a statistically siE;nificant improvement in fit over all other...

Workers' compensation insurance presents a set of institutional charac teristics that are unique. For every other form of insurance, both the insurer and the coverage provided under the policy are completely controlled either by the federal or a state government, or by an arrangement between the insured and a property-casualty insurer. Unemployment insurance, Social Security, and bank-deposit insurance are examples for which a legis lative body sets the benefits. and a government agency prescribes the in surance premium. By contrast, the coverage and premiums for automobile, homeowners, and...

The First International Conference on Insurance Solvency was held at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania from June 18th through June 20th, 1986. The conference was the inaugural event for Wharton's Center for Research on Risk and Insurance. In atten dance were thirty-nine representatives from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The papers presented at the Conference are published in two volumes, this book and a companion volume, Classical Insurance Solvency Theory, J. D. Cummins and R. A. Derrig, eds. (Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic...

The problem of solvency is, in fact, as old as insurance. The history of the industry knows many ways to meet the risks involved with underwriting, such as spreading the risk portfolio (Cato, Senior already applied it), risk selection, reserve funds, reinsurance, etc. Whilst these measures too often proved ineffective, the establish ment of legislative control and public supervision ensued. However, not until the last few decades has the solvency issue become an ob ject of intensive studies, very much thanks to the progress of related empirical and theoretical knowledge, and in the under...

Statistics published by the U. S. Department of Commerce (1980) indicate that in 1977 we spent 8. 1% of our gross national product (GNP) on life, health, property-casualty, and other forms of insurance. An additional 5. 7% was used to pay the Social Security tax, which is another form of insurance premium, for a total of 14. 8% of the GNP. Although insurance had its historical origin in marine insurance, it has now developed into one of the major industries of the American economy and extends into many areas of economic activity. One area where growth has been particularly strong is the...

The Geneva Association and Risk Economics The Geneva Association The Geneva Association (International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics) commenced its activities in June 1973, on the initiative of twenty-two members in eight European countries. It now has fifty-four members in sixteen countries in Europe and in the United States. The members of the association are insurance companies which provide financial support for its activities. The aims and strategy of the Geneva Association were clearly defined in 1971 by the founding committee. They were set forth in the first report...

Property-liability insurance rates for most lines of business are regulated in about one-half of the states. In most cases, this me ans that rates must be filed with the state insurance commissioner and approved prior to use. The remainder of the states have various forms of competitive rating laws. These either require that rates be filed prior to use but need not be approved or that rates need not be filed at all. State rating laws are summarized in Rand Corporation (1985). The predominant form of insurance rate regulation, prior approval, began in the late 1940s following the V. S. Supreme...