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Article
Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods in Cash Flow Testing Simulations
Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works
  • Michael Gene Hilgers, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Abstract

What actuaries call cash flow testing is a large-scale simulation pitting a company''s current policy obligation against future earnings based on interest rates. While life contingency issues associated with contract payoff are a mainstay of the actuarial sciences, modeling the random fluctuations of US Treasury rates is less studied. Furthermore, applying standard simulation techniques, such as the Monte Carlo method, to actual multi-billion dollar companies produce a simulation that can be computationally prohibitive. In practice, only hundreds of sample paths can be considered, not the usual hundreds of thousands one might expect for a simulation of this complexity. Hence, insurance companies have a desire to accelerate the convergence of the estimation procedure. The paper reports the results of cash flow testing simulations performed for Conseco L.L.C. using so-called quasi-Monte Carlo techniques. In these, pseudo-random number generation is replaced with deterministic low discrepancy sequences. It was found that by judicious choice of subsequences, that the quasi-Monte Carlo method provided a consistently tighter estimate than the traditional methods for a fixed, small number of sample paths. The techniques used to select these subsequences are discussed.

Department(s)
Business and Information Technology
Keywords and Phrases
  • Monte Carlo Method,
  • Monte Carlo Methods,
  • US Treasury Rates,
  • Actuarial Sciences,
  • Actuaries,
  • Cash Flow Testing Simulations,
  • Contract Payoff,
  • Current Policy Obligation,
  • Deterministic Low Discrepancy Sequences,
  • Digital Simulation,
  • Estimation Procedure,
  • Future Earnings,
  • Insurance Companies,
  • Insurance Data Processing,
  • Interest Rates,
  • Investment,
  • Large-Scale Simulation,
  • Life Contingency Issues,
  • Multi-Billion Dollar Companies,
  • Pseudo-Random Number Generation,
  • Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods,
  • Random Fluctuations,
  • Random Processes,
  • Sample Paths,
  • Sequences,
  • Standard Simulation Techniques
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2000 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
1-1-2000
Publication Date
01 Jan 2000
Disciplines
Citation Information
Michael Gene Hilgers. "Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods in Cash Flow Testing Simulations" (2000)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/michael-hilgers/18/