South Africa's Cabinet Approves White Paper on Health Insurance

1. in December 2015 South Africa’s cabinet approved a policy white paper on a compulsory health- insurance plan.

Managing General Insurance Management Expenses

BACKGROUND

Management Expense ratios for an insurance company refers to the percentage of premium used to pay the costs of acquiring, writing and servicing insurance and reinsurance products. It can either be obtained by dividing expenses by total written premium or earned premium.

Underwriters sometimes factor in management expense ratios when pricing premiums. Here is an articles reporting regulator's concerns on increasing expense ratios and what has caused a surged in expenses which has the tendency to spiral out of control if left unchecked especially for companies on an aggressive business expansion plan. 

Insurance Financial Ratios

BACKGROUND
Below are some financial ratios relevant to the insurance management process and provides a rough idea of how management are running the companies and a possible indication of companies’ direction. We will discuss the ratios in-depth in subsequent posts. I have organized them into three main categories as follow:-

1. Underwriting Management Indicators

2. Profitability Indicators

3. Liquidity Measurement Indicators

Interest Rate Models for Insurers

BACKGROUND
This post briefly describes how interest rates affects life and general insurers and plausible models to predict future short term rates or spot rates movements. Interest rates has minimal impact on General Insurers but nevertheless is discussed for comparison purposes.