Short Term Longevity Risk

As well-born actuaries we all know the long term risks of longevity:

• Life Expectancy variance Monster
• Longevity Swaps: The Next Bubble
• Coverage Ratio Solution Space
• Exceptional Longevity Predictable

Lots of actuaries keep expending their energy on calculations of 50 years ahead mortality probabilities....  And indeed..., this is challenging....

Some research reports predict a decline in life expectation, others and more serious recent reports show a steady increase of life expectation.

Mission Impossible

Fact of actuarial life is that - although long term research is useful and educational - we are no Actuarial Magicians.

We should never suggest that we're able to value a bunch of complex and systemic risks  (liabilities, assets,mortality, costs, demographics, etc) into a reliable consistent model that predicts reality.

It's a farce!

What CAN we do?

Instead trying to compress a complex of long term risky cash flows into one representing unique value, we need to:

1. Analyze and model the short term risks
2. Develop a method (system) that enables boards of directors to manage and control their risky cash flows (profit share systems, experience rating, etc.).

Example: Short Term Longevity Risk

As a 2011 report of the National Research Council clearly shows:  The previous 50 years we've seen a 3 months yearly increase of lifespan every calendar year.

Instead of recalculating, checking and pondering this trend, let's take a look at the short term effects of this longevity increase trend.

Effect of 'one year life expectancy' increase 
First we take a look at the cost effect of the increase of 'one year of life expectancy' on a single-premium of a (deferred) life annuity (paid-up pensions)...
( Life table total population: United States, 2003 )

Depending on the discounting interest rate, a one year improvement of longevity for a 65 old person demands a 2,3% to 4,0% increase of the liabilities.

Of course the increase of the liabilities of a portfolio (of a pension fund) depends on the (liability weighted) age distrubution of the corresponding portfolio.

Here's a simple example:

This comes close to the rule of thumb as mentioned by AEGON:

10% mortality improvement adds one year to life expectancy, and one year of life expectancy adds 4% to the required value of a pension fund’s reserves

Conclusion

From the above presented visual sensitivity analysis we may conclude that for general (distributed) portfolio's a 'one year lifetime increase' will demand approximately 4-5% of the actual liabilities.

A three to four months yearly longevity-increase - as is still the actual trend - will therefore demand roughly a substantial 1,5% (yearly) of the liabilities.
This implies that in case your contribution is calculated at 4% and your average portfolio return is 7%, there's 3% left for financing longevity and indexation (=method). As 'longevity growth' in the near future will probably cost about 1,5%, there's  only 1,5% left for indexation on the long run.


Case closed


Related links:
-  Spreadsheet (xls) with data used in this blog
- Forecasting longevity of Dutch pension scheme members using postcodes
- Increasing life expectancy at pension funds (uvt;2011)
- Life Tables for the United States Social Security Area 1900-2100
- Valuing Pension Fund Liabilities on the Balance Sheet
- No limits to life expectancy?
- Broken Limits to Life Expectancy
- NRC: Explaining divergent levels of longevity (pdf;2011)
- Wolfram Alpha: Longevity U.S.
- AEGON: Longevity Rule of thumb

Google Hits on Actuary

Google can be a great help for actuaries. Especially 'Google Insights' and 'Google Trends' are two useful applications for retrieving relative Google Search Hits data from the Internet.

Google Insights Example
Let's dive a little deeper into Google Insights and start with researching the relative development of the number of hits on the word 'Actuary'.
Here is the result (period 2004-2011-May, extracted csv-file, Excel-Graph):

Explanation
The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term (e.g. 'Actuary'), relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don't represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100.

Conclusion

Clear is that the search for (the word) actuary is relatively declining from 2004 to May 2011.

To keep the actuarial profession virtually alive we'll need to make more noise as actuaries on the Internet.

Step outside, spread the (acturial) word, make yourself visible in the outer world and let people wonder:  'who's that?',  'what a professional', 'what's his job?', 'Actuary?', 'I will google it!'.

So let's Twitter and Blog to get more actuarial exposure...


Actual Data

Apart from generating these kind of relative time-data, Google Insights can generate actual data anywhere on any web-application or presentation.

This way your data will always be up to date!
Moreover Google Insights is easy to handle without any code knowledge.....


Some examples....

(1) Actual relative development of the number of hits on the word 'Actuary'


(2) Top searches and rising searches on Google for the word 'Actuary'

More applications

The next example shows how you may use Google Highlights as a market crash predictor.  

It turns out that in advance of the 2008 market crash, Google searches on "Stock market crash" increased...

Make you own discoveries, highlights or trends (e.g 'Solvency II') and enjoy!


Related Links:
- Actuaries on Twitter
- Google Insights 
- S&P 500 Data 
- How Google Trends and Internet Searches Correlate with Asset Prices
- Google trends: 21 May 2011: End of the world, predicted by Harold Camping

Actuarial Proverbs: Will Europe Survive?

According to Eurostat, Europe - especially the Euro (€) 'Coin' Countries that put all their Euro eggs in one basket -  face a difficult time. In a world where money seems to grow on trees, it's hard to take the right measures to prevent Greece from a financial meltdown with unknown consequences.

Questions
Even for actuaries it's hard to understand what's happening and what makes sense or not, It's over our 'actuarial' head....

• Should 'Europe donor countries' support Greece fore more than the '110 billion Euro rescue' in 2010?
  
  
• Is Greece’s 10-year bond rate of 15% an adequate risk premium?
  
  
• Will restructuring Greece's debt solve anything, devaluate the Euro,  or pose other  incalculable risks to the overall Euro zone?

Difficult questions that are hard too answer....


Debt-Deficit Comparison
Let's take an actuarial look at the facts by comparing 2010 Government Debt with Deficit (all in % GDP):

From this chart it's clear that not only Greece is in the danger zone, but also Ireland and the US as well... Moreover, the UK is not free from worries, to put it mildly...

The blind are leading...
Another chart-conclusion might be that the blind are leading the blind'. Relative strong less-weaker countries like Germany and France,  have to carry the financial consequences of cheating and not-performing countries. Above all, we all know: one rotten apple spoils the barrel!!

In fact to save or revive 'Financial Europe' it would take some countries with no debt and a strong positive surplus (= negative deficit) instead of a deficit.

It seems neither sensible nor logical  to restructure another  country's debt if the outlook of the governments debt and deficit of the' helping country' is (slightly less) negative as well. But as we know: only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Trying to help other countries that fail to restructure themselves is like banging your head against a brick wall...  No risk premium on government bonds can compensate that...

Countries with a strong relative debt and a deficit should restructure their own country and financial situation at once, before asking ore receiving any outside help.

Growth: The Solution?
Some argue that debt and deficits are not so bad as long as countries are growing. Let's dive into this argument with the next chart (data source: Eurostat):

Indeed, from this 'Growth-Believe' we can now understand why (only) Greece is seen as such a major problem.

From this chart it's also clear that if Ireland and Spain are not going to grow one way or the other, they will become the next big problem. These countries have to take the bull by its horns, before it's too late.

It's throwing caution to the wind when 'debt and deficit countries' with a positive 'Real GDP Growth Rate' try to save sicker country-brothers by lending them money.

Moreover, it's lending money you don't really possess or own, it's like robbing Peter (yourself) to pay Paul....

Combining the two Eurostat charts it becomes clear that that not all 'Garlic Countries' (Mediterranean countries:Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy) can be lumped together.

Greece is indeed the greatest risk , secondly a non-garlic country: Ireland...
Spain, Portugal and Italy are relatively at arm’s length and could perhaps keep their head above water if they take the right measures in time.

U.S.' Fiscal Gap

Finally, don't forget about the U.S., as the U.S. Real GDP Growth Rate is already declining to 2.3% in Q1 2011.

According to Boston University economist Kotlikoff, the U.S. is broke.  Kotlikoff doesn’t trust government accounting. He uses “Fiscal Gap,” not the accumulation of deficits, to define public debt. This "Fiscal Gap" is the difference between a government’s projected revenue  and its projected spending .

By this measure, the U.S. government debt is $200-trillion – 840 percent of current GDP. 

Conclusions

From all this it's clear Europe is stuck between a rock and a hard place...
Although ECB President Mr. Trichet thinks different, it looks like €-Europe has to choose between two blind goats (Irish saying):

(1) A complete Financial Europe Meltdown in case of endless financing default countries like Greece or

(2) Letting individual default countries go bankrupt, with unsure (systemic) consequences for local banks and other financial institutions that financed or invested in default countries.

How to decide? Guideline:  Of two evils, always choose the less....
As option (1) is clearly putting the cart before the horse, and surely leads to a meltdown, only option 2 is left: QUIT!

Sources and related links:
- Spreadsheet: Used Data, Tables for this blog (xls)
- US Real GDP Growth Rate
- Government Debt and Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy (2010)
- English proverbs and sayings (!)
- English deficit (including time table)
- Shadowstats (for the real stats!)
- The U.S. is broke?
- Eurostat: Euro area government deficit at 6.0% GDP (2011) 
- BILD: Interview with Jean-Claude Trichet, President ECB, 15 January 2011