Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/330884 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Citation: 
[Journal:] European Actuarial Journal [ISSN:] 2190-9741 [Volume:] 15 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Berlin, Heidelberg [Year:] 2025 [Pages:] 859-884
Publisher: 
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
In traditional life insurance, typically return smoothing mechanisms are used to reduce the volatility of policyholders' returns and provide risk sharing between policyholders. By analyzing two illustrative smoothing mechanisms, we demonstrate that different smoothing mechanisms may have different effects. We find that mechanisms that are purely based on average historical asset returns can significantly reduce pathwise volatility (intertemporal smoothing) but have hardly any impact on the standard deviation of terminal wealth. In contrast, mechanisms using buffers that are built up "in good years" in order to increase returns "in bad years" can—when properly designed—reduce the standard deviation of terminal wealth without reducing the ex ante expected return by means of intergenerational risk sharing. We conclude that simple generic mechanisms that are often used in academic papers may not fully cover the effects resulting from return smoothing. Our results indicate that—when properly designed—intergenerational risk sharing mechanisms can improve risk-return profiles but at the price of increased complexity and potentially lower surrender values. A strong regulatory focus on simple products and sufficiently high surrender values might disincentivize products with intergenerational risk sharing despite their positive effects.
Subjects: 
Return Smoothing
Intergenerational Risk Sharing
Participating Life Insurance
Retirement Savings
JEL: 
G11
G18
G22
G51
G52
J26
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.