Author's Reply: Underwriting Risk and Return: Some Additional Comments

Abstract

In a recent paper, the author suggested that one would expect to find an inverse relationship between mean loss ratios and standard deviations of the associated annual loss ratios by state for automobile insurance if this coverage were properly priced.1 In other words, one would expect lower underwriting profits to be associated with higher loss ratios, and therefore, a company would have to anticipate lower underwriting risk in order to have an economic incentive to sell automobile insurance in such states. Accordingly, one would expect that the average loss ratios and standard deviations for a given coverage in the various states would vary inversely with each other if underwriting risk were properly reflected in the insurance rates for the coverage, other things being equal. In order to test this economic hypothesis for various automobile insurance coverages, the correlation coefficient between the mean loss ratios and standard deviations for the various states was calculated to determine if an inverse or negative relationship existed. However, a positive rather than a negative relationship was found between these variables. The author found this empirical relationship to be somewhat surprising.