Hey guys,
I just had an insurance-related project fall into my lap, and I don’t know a lot about insurance. I have gone over the basics in the past, but could benefit from a good primer covering the topic in more detail (business model, risks, spread dynamics, whatever). I am specifically interested in life / annuity and reinsurance. I don’t need to get bogged down in actuarial math, just want a big picture view.
Any good recommendations?
Yes. Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods puts out a P&C insurance primer called, crazily enough, Property & Casualty Insurance Primer. It’s about 100 pages and very, very, very good, an excellent 10,000 foot overview of the business and jargon, as well as regulatory stuff and a smattering of valuation stuff specific to the P&C market. I have the May 2010 version and still refer to the damned thing when I’m doing anything related to insurance (which isn’t often).
If you have any contact or relationship there, I’d suggest seeing if they put one out for whatever sector of the business you’re looking at. What type of insurance specifically are you working on? Edit: I see you mentioned life, annuity, and reinsurance. The thing I have covers the basics of those all but I’d still suggest checking in with KBW to see if they have a version of this bad boy specifically for that market.
Thanks, Supersadface. I don’t think we are active with Keefe but I will check. We might have them on Thomson.
Any other takers? Thanks.
Here is a thread from November with a similar request. You might check out the link that I posted to the Columbia Business School industry study.
http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-general-discussion/91307216
Wow, that’s great, thanks Chad – exactly what I was looking for. That should keep me busy for some time!