Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk

This chapter argues that variable annuities may cause systemic risk in the insurance sector. Life insurers, in particular in the US, have transformed their business by moving from largely diversifiable activities to taking on market risk. This exacerbated by the fact the variable annuities are typic...

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Autor principal: Wagner, Wolf
Formato: Article ou chapitre numérique
Lenguaje:Français
Publicado: 2020
Acceso en línea:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
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spelling cairn-RINDU1_201_0062RINDU1Annales des Mines - Réalités industrielles https://stm.cairn.info/revue-realites-industrielles-2020-1-page-62?lang=en https://doi.org/10.3917/rindu1.201.0062 Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk Wagner, Wolf2020 fre Annales des Mines - Réalités industrielles | Février 2020 | 1 | 2020-01-22 | p. 62-65 | 1148-7941 RINDU1_20177 This chapter argues that variable annuities may cause systemic risk in the insurance sector. Life insurers, in particular in the US, have transformed their business by moving from largely diversifiable activities to taking on market risk. This exacerbated by the fact the variable annuities are typically supplemented with guarantees. Such guarantees are effectively put-options on the stock market and expose insurers to significant stock market risk. Although insurers hedge a large fraction of the guarantees, the hedging also causes insurers to shift their asset allocation towards illiquid bonds. This backfires in the event of a correlated shock, where collective firesales of illiquid bonds result. The implications for the capital of the US life insurance sector, and systemic risk, are significant.Cairn free access
language Français
format Article ou chapitre numérique
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description This chapter argues that variable annuities may cause systemic risk in the insurance sector. Life insurers, in particular in the US, have transformed their business by moving from largely diversifiable activities to taking on market risk. This exacerbated by the fact the variable annuities are typically supplemented with guarantees. Such guarantees are effectively put-options on the stock market and expose insurers to significant stock market risk. Although insurers hedge a large fraction of the guarantees, the hedging also causes insurers to shift their asset allocation towards illiquid bonds. This backfires in the event of a correlated shock, where collective firesales of illiquid bonds result. The implications for the capital of the US life insurance sector, and systemic risk, are significant.
author Wagner, Wolf
spellingShingle Wagner, Wolf
Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk
author_facet Wagner, Wolf
author_sort Wagner, Wolf
title Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk
title_short Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk
title_full Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk
title_fullStr Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk
title_full_unstemmed Variable Annuities and Systemic Risk
title_sort variable annuities and systemic risk
publishDate 2020
container_title
container_issue
url https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://stm.cairn.info/revue-realites-industrielles-2020-1-page-62?lang=en
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.3917/rindu1.201.0062
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