Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T12:34:37.629Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

FREQUENTIST INFERENCE IN INSURANCE RATEMAKING MODELS ADJUSTING FOR MISREPRESENTATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2019

Rexford M. Akakpo
Affiliation:
Division of Statistics, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL 60115, USA E-Mail: rakakpo@niu.edu
Michelle Xia*
Affiliation:
Division of Statistics, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL 60115, USA E-Mail: cxia@niu.edu
Alan M. Polansky
Affiliation:
Division of Statistics, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL 60115, USA E-Mail: polansky@niu.edu
*
E-Mail: cxia@niu.edu

Abstract

In insurance underwriting, misrepresentation represents the type of insurance fraud when an applicant purposely makes a false statement on a risk factor that may lower his or her cost of insurance. Under the insurance ratemaking context, we propose to use the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to perform maximum likelihood estimation of the regression effects and the prevalence of misrepresentation for the misrepresentation model proposed by Xia and Gustafson [(2016) The Canadian Journal of Statistics, 44, 198–218]. For applying the EM algorithm, the unobserved status of misrepresentation is treated as a latent variable in the complete-data likelihood function. We derive the iterative formulas for the EM algorithm and obtain the analytical form of the Fisher information matrix for frequentist inference on the parameters of interest for lognormal losses. We implement the algorithm and demonstrate that valid inference can be obtained on the risk effect despite the unobserved status of misrepresentation. Applying the proposed algorithm, we perform a loss severity analysis with the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data. The analysis reveals not only the potential impact misrepresentation may have on the risk effect but also statistical evidence on the presence of misrepresentation in the self-reported insurance status.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Astin Bulletin 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benaglia, T., Chauveau, D., Hunter, D. and Young, D. (2009) mixtools: An R package for analyzing finite mixture models. Journal of Statistical Software, 32(6), 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brockman, M.J. and Wright, T.S. (1992) Statistical motor rating: making effective use of your data. Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 119, 457543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dempster, A.P., Laird, N.M. and Rubin, D.B. (1977) Maximum likelihood from incomplete data via the EM algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B (Methodological), 39, 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fonseca, J.R. and Cardoso, M.G. (2007) Mixture-model cluster analysis using information theoretical criteria. Intelligent Data Analysis, 11(2), 155173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frees, E.W. (2009) Regression Modeling with Actuarial and Financial Applications. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greer, B.A., Young, D.M. and Stamey, J.D. (2010) Bayesian inference for comparing two Poisson rates using data subject to underreporting and validation data. Statistical Methodology, 7, 98108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grün, B. and Leisch, F. (2008) FlexMix version 2: Finite mixtures with concomitant variables and varying and constant parameters. Journal of Statistical Software, 28, 135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafson, P. (2014) Bayesian statistical methodology for observational health sciences data. In Statistics in Action: A Canadian Outlook, pp. 163176. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Gustafson, P. and Greenland, S. (2014) Misclassification. In Handbook of Epidemiology, 2nd ed., pp. 639658. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hahn, P.R., Murray, J.S. and Manolopoulou, I. (2016) A Bayesian partial identification approach to inferring the prevalence of accounting misconduct. Journal of the American Statistical Association 111, 14–26. doi: 10.1080/01621459.2015.1084307.Google Scholar
Hartigan, J. (1985) A failure of likelihood asymptotics for normal mixtures. In Proceedings of Berkeley Conference in Honor of J. Neyman and J. Kiefer, vol. 2, pp. 807–810.Google Scholar
Li, P. (2007) Hypothesis testing in finite mixture models. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Waterloo.Google Scholar
Li, P. andChen, J. (2010) Testing the order of a finite mixture. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 105(491), 10841092.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louis, T.A. (1982) Finding the observed information matrix when using the EM algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B (Methodological), 44, 226233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martins, J.R., Sturdza, P. and Alonso, J.J. (2003) The complex-step derivative approximation. ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS), 29(3), 245262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mclachlan, G. and Krishnan, T. (2007) The EM Algorithm and Extensions, vol. 382, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Mclachlan, G. and Peel, D. (2004) Finite Mixture Models. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Mclachlan, G.J. (1987) On bootstrapping the likelihood ratio test statistic for the number of components in a normal mixture. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C (Applied Statistics), 36(3), 318324.Google Scholar
Scollnik, D. P. (2015) A Pareto scale-inflated outlier model and its Bayesian analysis. Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2015(3), 201220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, P. (2016) Insurance ratemaking using a copula-based multivariate Tweedie model. Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2016(3), 198215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, P., Feng, X. and Ivantsova, A. (2015) Dependent frequency–severity modeling of insurance claims. Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 64, 417428.Google Scholar
Sun, L., Xia, M., Tang, Y. and Jones, P.G. (2017) Bayesian adjustment for unidirectional misclassification in ordinal covariates. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, 87(18), 34403468. doi: 10.1080/00949655.2017.1370649.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winsor, R.S. (1995) Misrepresentation and Non-Disclosure on Applications for Insurance. Toronto, Ontario: Blaney McMurtry LLP.Google Scholar
Xia, M. and Gustafson, P. (2016) Bayesian regression models adjusting for unidirectional covariate misclassification. The Canadian Journal of Statistics, 44, 198218. doi: 10.1002/cjs.11284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xia, M. and Gustafson, P. (2018) Bayesian inference for unidirectional misclassification of a binary response trait. Statistics in Medicine, 37(6), 933947.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Xia, M., Hahn, P.R. and Gustafson, P. (2018) A Bayesian mixture of experts approach to covariate misclassification. Technical Report, pp. 1–27.Google Scholar
Yang, W.Y., Cao, W., Chung, T.-S. andMorris, J. (2005) Applied Numerical Methods Using MATLAB. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar