PulseModel assists insurers and reinsurers in dealing with the many challenges involved in writing, or in some cases just managing, morbidity, mortality and longevity risk. It is built in our powerful capital modelling software, Igloo, but has been developed in such a way that users have compete flexibility to see and change all model parameters in Excel without needing any specialised Igloo skills.
PulseModel offers clients a range of business applications, including:
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Longevity Improvements
PulseModel offers firms a unique forward-looking perspective on longevity improvements. In developing the model, we sought views from a pool of 10 medical experts on the future variations in morbidity and mortality they expect in their fields, together with the underlying rationale. PulseModel allows users to quantify the effect of those recommendations on their own portfolio, for a firm-specific forward-looking view (the methodology is not extrapolative).
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Medical and Personalised Underwriting
PulseModel allows firms to rate business on various medical risk factors – for instance, state of health or disease at outset, or blood sugar. This is vital information to improve the profitability of both standard and medically contingent business. For low to medium sized sum assureds, this information could reduce or even supplant the need for specialist medical reports, leading to reductions in the cost of underwriting.
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Product Development
Detailed insights are a pre-requisite for the development of new products. PulseModel provides you with a powerful tool giving an alternative, independent and objective view of assumptions.
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Enhancing Risk Management
PulseModel can enhance various aspects of how morbidity, mortality or longevity risk are managed. For instance:
- Providing a biologically plausible view of longevity stresses
- Assessing whether premiums are too low for a particular segment
- Quantifying anti-selection risk in a changing market
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Standing Up to Regulatory Challenge
The methodology underlying PulseModel regarding improvements makes it ideal to support firms' internal model work around 'new information risk' in longevity trend stress, as well as supporting best estimate work.
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Advanced Mortality Insights
PulseModel allows users to derive powerful insights from the rich underlying parameterisation. Recent applications include a better understanding of the select mortality 'wear-off' effect, and the dynamics of mortality at very high ages (90-100).
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Operational Advantages
Operationally, PulseModel benefits include improved Board engagement through enhanced scenario analysis, greater consistency across models, model flexibility and the option of regular updates. PulseModel also allows bespoke parameterisation and bespoke model restructuring by users, based purely on adjustments of the Excel interface.
