Solvency margin
Internationally, there are essentially four main types of methodologies used by supervisory authorities for determining solvency margins requirements being the fixed ratio methodology, risk-based capital methodology, scenario-based approaches and probabilistic approaches.
The building of predictive financial models such as the one used in the last two approaches - including the determination of features of risk factors and input data - is certainly one of the missions for which the expertise of AT Global will be most appreciated.
- Fixed ratio methodology:
requirements are pegged to a fixed proportion of some proxy of exposure to risk, often an item from the insurer's balance sheet or P&L account. Examples are a percentage of premiums written or a quota of the outstanding claims provisions. This methodology was for example the base of the solvency system in the EU before the introduction of the Solvency II regime - Risk-based capital methodology:
this methodology has been developed in response to the coarseness of the simpler fixed-ratios models. The solvency margin is then built up from a number of lower level ratios, relating to a refinement of risk elements, egdifferent insurance classes, risks from the assets side. Some efforts are usually made to take interaction between the lower level ratios into consideration, or to adjust exposure bases such as premiums or provisions for deviations from market standards. Such a methodology is or has been applied in the US or in Japan for example - Scenarios-based approaches:
under this methodology, capital requirements are calculated based on the worst-case outcome from a set of scenarios applied to the insurance company's predictive financial model. These financial models produce deterministic cash-flow and balance-sheet projections. Variants of this methodology are or have been applied in (some states of) the US or in the UK - Probabilistic approaches:
this methodology attempts to cover the full-range of risk variables which are sampled from statistical distributions in simulation runs of the insurance company's predictive financial model. The results therefore consist in the full probability distribution of possible outcomes, rather than in outcomes of specific scenarios like in the previous approach. The solvency margin is then calculated from features of the capital distribution using one particular risk measure and one confidence threshold. This approach underlies the internal models approach of Solvency II, and is also used in other jurisdictions like Australia for example.