Loss portfolio transfer treaties within Solvency II capital system: a reinsurer’s point of view

Abstract

Loss portfolio transfer (LPT) is a reinsurance treaty in which an insurer cedes the policies that have already incurred losses to a reinsurer. This operation can be carried out by an insurance company in order to reduce reserving risk and consequently reduce its capital requirement calculated, according to Solvency II. From the viewpoint of the reinsurance company, being a very complex operation, importance must be given to the methodology used to determine the price of the treaty.Following the collective risk approach, the paper examines the risk profiles and the reinsurance pricing of LPT treaties, taking into account the insurance capital requirements established by European law. For this purpose, it is essential to calculate the capital need for the risk deriving from the LPT transaction. In the case analyzed, this requirement is calculated under Solvency II legislation, considering the measure of variability determined via simulation. This quantification was also carried out for different levels of the cost of capital rate, providing a range of possible loadings to be applied to the premium. In the case of the Cost of Capital (CoC) approach, the results obtained provide a lower level of premium compared to the percentile-based method with a range between 2.69% and 1.88%. Besides, the CoC approach also provides the advantage of having an explicit parameter, the CoC rate whose specific level can be chosen by the reinsurance company based on the risk appetite.