Journal of Probability and Statistics
Volume 2009 (2009), Article ID 451856, 18 pages
doi:10.1155/2009/451856
Research Article

Optimal Premium Pricing for a Heterogeneous Portfolio of Insurance Risks

Department of Statistics, Athens University of Economics and Business, 76 Patision Street, Athens 104 34, Greece

Received 20 March 2009; Accepted 11 June 2009

Academic Editor: Ričardas Zitikis

Copyright © 2009 Athanasios A. Pantelous et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The paper revisits the classical problem of premium rating within a heterogeneous portfolio of insurance risks using a continuous stochastic control framework. The portfolio is divided into several classes where each class interacts with the others. The risks are modelled dynamically by the means of a Brownian motion. This dynamic approach is also transferred to the design of the premium process. The premium is not constant but equals the drift of the Brownian motion plus a controlled percentage of the respective volatility. The optimal controller for the premium is obtained using advanced optimization techniques, and it is finally shown that the respective pricing strategy follows a more balanced development compared with the traditional premium approaches.