Analyzing the interest rate risk of equity-indexed annuities via scenario matrices

Abstract

The financial return of equity-indexed annuities depends on an underlying fund or investment portfolio complemented by an investment guarantee. We discuss a so-called cliquet-style or ratchet-type guarantee granting a minimum annual return. Its path-dependent payoff complicates valuation and risk management, especially if interest rates are modelled stochastically. We develop a novel scenario-matrix (SM) method. In the example of a Vasicek-Black-Scholes model, we derive closed-form expressions for the value and moment-generating function of the final payoff in terms of the scenario matrix. This allows efficient evaluation of values and various risk measures, avoiding Monte-Carlo simulation or numerical Fourier inversion. In numerical tests, this procedure proves to converge quickly and outperforms the existing approaches in the literature in terms of computation time and accuracy.