Efficient Hedging and Pricing of Equity-Linked Life Insurance Contracts on Several Risky Assets

The authors use the efficient hedging methodology for optimal pricing and hedging of equity-linked life insurance contracts whose payoff depends on the performance of several risky assets. In particular, they consider a policy that pays the maximum of the values of n risky assets at some maturity date T, provided that the policyholder survives to T. Such contracts incorporate financial risk, which stems from the uncertainty about future prices of the underlying financial assets, and insurance risk, which arises from the policyholder's mortality. The authors show how efficient hedging can be used to minimize expected losses from imperfect hedging under a particular risk preference of the hedger. They also prove a probabilistic result, which allows one to calculate analytic pricing formulas for equity-linked payoffs with n risky assets. To illustrate its use, explicit formulas are derived for optimal prices and expected hedging losses for payoffs with two risky assets. Numerical examples highlighting the implications of efficient hedging for the management of financial and insurance risks of equity-linked life insurance policies are also provided.

Published In:

International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (0219-0249)
May 2008. Vol. 11, Iss. 3, pp. 295-323