Variation In Premium Research Articles

Factors that Influence the Profits of Takaful Companies in Indonesia and Malaysia

Islamic Financial Institutions were established as an application of Muslims' understanding of several principles in Islamic economic law and are developing every year. Takaful contributed 2 percent of total sharia financial assets in 2021; however, in 2019–2020, the development of takaful assets decreased compared to the previous year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are several factors that influence profit instability in takaful industry. This study will examine the factors that influence the level of profit in takaful in Indonesia and Malaysia throughout 2017–2022, acquired a sample of 11 firms and obtained secondary data for this study from the official websites of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Financial Services Authority (OJK). Utilizing methods for quantitative research, specifically a purposive sampling approach and panel data regression modeling. The research results show that the variables premium, return on investment, risk-based capital, and claims expenses have a major favorable impact on takaful profitability, while liquidity has a major negative impact on the same. Simultaneously, the premium variables, investment returns, risk-based capital, liquidity, and claims costs simultaneously influence the profitability of takaful.

Preferences for innovations in healthcare delivery models in the Swiss elderly population: a latent class, choice modelling study.

With the increasing number of people affected by multiple chronic conditions, it is essential for public-health professionals to promote strategies addressing patient needs for coordinated care. We aim to explore preference heterogeneity for better-coordinated care delivery models in Swiss older adults, and identify profiles of individuals more open to healthcare reforms. A DCE (discrete choice experiment) survey was developed online and on paper for the Swiss adults aged 50+, following best practice. To elicit preferences, we estimated a latent class model allowing grouping individuals with similar preferences into distinct classes, and examined what background characteristics contributed to specific class membership. The optimal model identified three classes with different openness to reforms. Class 1 (49%) members were concerned with premium increases and were in favour of integrated care structures with care managed by interprofessional teams. Individuals in class 2 (19%) were younger, open to reforms, and expressed the needs for radical changes within the Swiss healthcare system. Class 3 respondents (32%) were strongly reluctant to changes. Our study goes beyond average preferences and identifies three distinct population profiles, a majority open to reforms on specific aspects of care delivery, a smallest group in favour radical changes, and a third strongly against changes. Therefore, tailored approaches around healthcare reforms are needed, e.g. explaining the role of interprofessional teams in coordinating care, electronic health records and insurance premium variation.

Analysis of Factors Influencing Employee Performance in Palm Oil Harvesting at PT. Semadam

The palm oil industry has created business potential. Palm oil agribusiness is one of the industrial sectors in Indonesia that possesses a competitive advantage in the global market. The development of the palm oil industry in Indonesia has been carried out with a focus on achieving a balance among social, financial, and environmental aspects. The attention of oil palm plantation employees is crucial for increasing productivity. This research aims to analyze the influence of the harvest premium variables: length of service, age, education level, number of dependents, grants, and geology on the work implementation of oil palm harvesting workers at PT Semadam. This research was conducted in June 2022 at PT. Semadam, Aceh Tamiang. In this research, the survey method was employed. The number of samples was calculated using the Slovin Formula with an error rate of 10% or 0.1. This calculation obtained a sample size of 40 respondents from a population of 45 people. The research results indicate a collective influence of independent factors (premium collection, work involvement, age, education level, number of dependents, aid funds, and geographical location) on the dependent variable (work implementation). However, premium collection, education level, and geography significantly influence worker performance, while work involvement, age, work involvement, and grants do not substantially impact worker performance. The coefficient of determination, 0.825, indicates that the independent variables explain 82.5% of the variance in the dependent variable, while other factors influence 17.5%.

ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING LABOR EFFICIENCY IN OIL PALM HARVESTING AT PT ASN KEBUN UJONG LAMIE, NAGAN RAYA DISTRICT

Labor efficiency is all the efforts made by each member in balancing the amount of labor with the production produced. The purpose of this study was to determine the labor efficiency of oil palm harvesters at PT ASN Kebun Ujong Lamie, Nagan Raya Regency. This study uses a quantitative research method with multiple linear regression analysis method. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling. The sample in this study amounted to 19 respondents. The results showed that partially with a 95% confidence level the premium variable had an effect on the labor efficiency of oil palm harvesters, and age and education level had no effect on the efficiency of the palm oil harvesters. Meanwhile, the age, education level, and premium variables simultaneously affect the labor efficiency of oil palm harvesters.

Adaptation and Adverse Selection in Markets for Natural Disaster Insurance

This paper quantifies frictions in uptake, tests for adverse selection, and analyzes welfare effects of proposed reforms in natural disaster insurance markets. I find that willingness to pay is remarkably low. In high-risk flood zones, fewer than 60 percent of homeowners purchase flood insurance even though premiums are only two-thirds of own costs. Estimating flood insurance demand and cost elasticities using house-level variation in premiums from recent US congressional reforms reveals that these homeowners select into insurance based on observable differences in adaptation but not private information about risk. These findings change the sign of predicted welfare effects of proposed policies. (JEL D82, G22, Q54)

The interplay between risk adjustment and risk rating in voluntary health insurance

AbstractMany regulated health insurance markets include risk adjustment (aka risk equalization) to mitigate selection incentives for insurers. Empirical studies on the design and evaluation of risk‐adjustment algorithms typically focus on mandatory health insurance schemes. This paper considers risk adjustment in the context of voluntary health insurance, as found in Chile, Ireland, and Australia. In addition to the challenge of mitigating selection by insurers, regulators of these voluntary schemes have to deal with selection by consumers in and out of the market. A strategy for mitigating selection by consumers is to apply some form of risk rating. Our paper shows how risk adjustment and risk rating interact: (1) risk rating reduces the need for risk adjustment and (2) risk adjustment reduces premium variation across rating factors, thereby increasing incentives for consumers to select in and out of the market.

The assessment of green premium variation across different development scales: case of apartment complexes in Seoul, South Korea

ABSTRACT Building sustainability has become a major objective in architecture due to buildings’ significant contribution to the environment degradation. Like many other nations, South Korea has inaugurated the Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design (G–SEED) to address the issue of environmental loads caused by energy inefficient buildings. Due to the additional construction cost needed to obtain G–SEED certification, building stakeholders face challenges in deciding whether to invest in green building certification. In this study, we evaluate the existence and magnitude of the G–SEED price premium in Seoul, one of most densely populated cities in South Korea. We applied the hedonic pricing model to an extensive dataset of all housing transactions made during 2018 in all 25 districts of Seoul. Our findings indicate that the average price premium for a G–SEED certified apartment is 24.3%, with the premium being 18.3%, 31.0%, and 54.6% for small, medium, and large apartment complexes, respectively. We conclude that although the additional cost required to meet G–SEED certification criteria increases with the size of the development; green investment is profitable at all scales considered in this study.

Beating the Average: Equity Premium Variations, Uncertainty, and Liquidity

This paper contributes to the equity premium prediction literature by studying the performance of rarely or not researched predictors. To do so, we analyze the ability of state‐of‐the‐art liquidity and uncertainty predictors to beat the historical average when forecasting the monthly US equity premium. For this purpose, we apply an out‐of‐sample predictive regression approach to analyze statistical accuracy as well as economic gains of equity premium forecasts. Our findings show that the treasury‐eurodollar (TED) spread, as well as the macroeconomic uncertainty measure, is able to beat the historical average and provide robust predictions in various business cycles. Moreover, these two economic predictors also beat forecasts of a classical time series model.

Co-skewness and expected return: Evidence from international stock markets

We investigate the pricing role of co-skewness using stock level data from 21 financial markets globally. We find that co-skewness with the local, regional, and world market returns all have significant negative effects on the expected return. Regional and world co-skewness have additional pricing power in addition to local co-skewness. The results are robust after controlling for well-documented pricing factors such as size, value, profitability, investment, momentum, and liquidity. In addition, market attributes related to the information environment, market integration degree, and cultural characteristics have profound influences on the cross-market co-skewness premium variations. Finally, the co-skewness effects are more pronounced when the investors’ perceived uncertainty and volatility level are high.

Do Intermediaries Matter for Aggregate Asset Prices?

ABSTRACTPoor financial health of intermediaries coincides with low asset prices and high risk premiums. Is this because intermediaries matter for asset prices, or because their health correlates with economy‐wide risk aversion? In the first case, return predictability should be more pronounced for asset classes in which households are less active. We provide evidence supporting this prediction, suggesting that a quantitatively sizable fraction of risk premium variation in several large asset classes such as credit or mortgage‐backed securities (MBS) is due to intermediaries. Movements in economy‐wide risk aversion create the opposite pattern, and we find this channel also matters.

Factors Affecting Borsa İstanbul Trading Volume and Overconfidence Bias

The aim of this study is to examine the factors affecting the trading volume of Borsa Istanbul within the framework of the overconfidence bias, one of the behavioral finance theories. For this purpose, stock market trading volume, BIST 100 index closing values, BIST 100 index historical volatility and credit default swaps (CDS) premium variables for the period covering the years 2010 – 2019 were used in the study. During the analysis process, firstly ADF, PP and KPSS unit root tests were performed and then Granger causality analysis was applied. The findings showed that the stock index and CDS premiums are the Granger cause of the trading volume, but volatility is not the Granger cause of the trading volume. The obtained findings were compared with the results in the literature and interpreted. It is interpreted that linking the earnings obtained with the increase in the stock market index to individual abilities, predictions and achievements may cause a tendency to overconfidence bias in investors. In addition, it is thought that this overconfidence may cause new transactions and thus an increase in the transaction volume. CDS premiums, on the other hand, give positive and negative signals about the future and are accepted as a risk indicator. It can be evaluated that investor who perceive risk as an opportunity and have a tendency to overconfidence bias will try to evaluate this situation with various positions and transactions and increase market trading volume. However, the fact that volatility is not the cause of trading volume can be explained by the perception that investors with high returns pay less attention to volatility and that their own forecasts are better than other investors' forecasting power. As a result, volatility is not effect the trading activity and investors focus on the value they have determined within the framework of overconfidence bias.

Short-run risk, business cycle, and the value premium

We jointly explain the equity and value premium variations in a model with both short-run (SRR) and long-run (LRR) consumption risk. In our empirical analysis, we find that SRR varies with the business cycle, and it has a substantial predictive power for market excess returns and the value premium—both in-sample and out-of-sample. The LRR component also differs significantly from zero, and value stocks have a larger exposure to both LRR and SRR than growth stocks. To explain these patterns in asset returns, we propose an extended LRR model. The model can be solved using log-linear approximations with economically small errors.

Collective Risk Assessment in Affordable Care Act Markets: A Bayesian Hierarchical Model

The changes that the Affordable Care Act introduced to the US health insurance market have entirely altered the traditional ratemaking process. Precisely, the creation of statewide community rating schemes and a guaranteed issue has facilitated insurance coverage to the high-risk population, leading to massive changes in risk pool compositions. The implementation of Risk Adjustment has neutralized some of the consequences of limiting premium variation in the market. However, setting appropriate rate levels has remained cumbersome due to the uncertainty about the statewide risk pool. Many insurers, who could not quantify the health risk associated with the statewide yearly enrollment, had to face unexpectedly high payments on risk equalization. Natsis (2019) stated that in this environment, the use of traditional univariate techniques to project statewide health care costs could be potentially misleading. This thesis proposes a Bayesian approach to reflect important sources of uncertainty over statewide actuarial estimates. The aggregate loss is modeled with a novel collective risk model based on a Generalized Beta Prime (GBP) distribution, accounting for long tail risks and changes in risk pool compositions. The GBP is presented with a mean-dispersion parametrization, which allows the introduction of a hierarchical prior specification over the state-specific means. This parameter structure, responsible of quantifying uncertainty and sharing information among states, is a cornerstone of the adopted collective risk model. Using the Commercial Health Care data extract published by the Society of Actuaries (2019), the model is applied on the Surgical and Transplant service category. The resulting heavy-tailed posteriors of the nationwide service means illustrate the high variation of inpatient medical costs. Moreover, the posteriors of the statewide aggregate claims remain highly right-skewed, reflecting the risk of facing sicker populations and high-cost treatments at individual claim level.

Provider networks and health plan premium variation

To examine how plan premiums are associated with physician network breadth, hospital network breadth, and hospital network quality on the Affordable Care Act's Health Insurance Marketplaces in all 50 states and the DC in 2016. Data on plan premiums and characteristics came from 2016 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) Compare. Provider network information was obtained from Vericred. Hospital characteristics were obtained from CMS Hospital Compare and the American Hospital Association (AHA) survey. We analyzed how plan premiums were associated with variations in physician network breadth, hospital network breadth, and hospital network quality using ordinary least square regressions with state-rating area fixed effects and carrier fixed effects. Plan premiums were positively associated with physician network breadth and hospital network breadth. We find the following statistically significant results: a one standard deviation increase in physician network breadth was linked to a premium increase of 2.8 percent or $101 per year; a one standard deviation increase in hospital network breadth was linked to a premium increase of 2.4 percent or $86 per year. There was no significant association between premiums and hospital network quality, as measured by hospital star ratings and the inclusion of teaching hospitals or the top-20 hospitals nationwide. Physician network breadth and hospital network breadth contributed positively to plan premiums. The roles of the two types of provider network breadth are quantitatively similar. Premiums appear to be insensitive to hospital network quality.

Terminating Cost-Sharing Reduction Subsidy Payments: The Impact Of Marketplace Zero-Dollar Premium Plans On Enrollment.

The termination of cost-sharing reduction subsidy payments to insurers in 2017 by the administration of President Donald Trump resulted in a proliferation of Marketplace plans having zero-dollar premiums in 2018 and 2019. While it is known that lower premiums increase Marketplace enrollment, it is not clear whether a zero-price effect exists in which enrollment spikes when health insurance is free. We examined whether such an effect exists and found that increased availability of zero-dollar premium plans would have caused a 14.1percent enrollment increase among lower-income Marketplace enrollees in 2019. If zero-dollar premium plans had not been available in 2019, our simulation results suggest that enrollment in the federally facilitated Marketplace would have decreased by roughly 200,000 enrollees. When we accounted for this zero-price effect, we found that variation in premiums above zero dollars was not associated with enrollment changes. These results suggest that efforts to insure lower-income populations should focus on making health insurance free to potential enrollees, instead of simply reducing premiums. However, increased enrollment in zero-dollar premium plans could result in increased cost sharing among Marketplace enrollees and increased federal outlays for Advance Premium Tax Credits.

Analysis of Risk Premium Behavior in the Tunisian Foreign Exchange Market During Crisis Period

In this paper, we empirically examine time-varying risk premia in the Tunisian foreign exchange market by applying GARCH-M modeling to the TND/Euro and TND/USD parities for 1 to 12 months forecasting horizons. Our ultimate objective is to help better manage the parities and to help provide stability to a foreign exchange market where EMH is very weak. Our findings show 1) a heteroscedasticity of residuals for the TND/Euro (all forecasting horizons) and the TND/USD(for 1 month) indicating a lack of stability of their volatility; 2) a non-significant standard deviation of the risk premium against the presence of ARCH and GACH in all cases. On the other hand, the descriptive analysis of the risk premium and term premium variables show an asymmetric distribution. We used, therefore, the asymmetric GARCH model, E-GARCH. Our normality tests show, however, that the GARCH model neither allows for residuals smoothing nor improves the AIC.

Billing Codes Determine Lower Physician Income for Primary Care and Non-Procedural Specialties.

The income gap between specialists and primary care physicians and among specialists is well established, but the drivers of this difference are not well delineated. Using the Community Tracking Study (CTS) Physician Survey, we sought to isolate and compare premiums paid to physicians for specialization and the proportion of time spent on offices visit rather than procedures. We divided medical subspecialties according the proportion of Medicare billing for Evaluation and Management (E&M) codes for the specialty as a whole. We report substantial differences in income across physician specialty, and over 70 percent of the difference in income remained controlling for factors that may confound the relationship between income and specialty including gender, location and type of practice, and hours. We note a large variation in premiums for specialization: 11.3-46.8 percent above family medicine after controlling for confounders. Classifying medical subspecialties by E&M billing as procedural versus non-procedural specialties revealed clear income differences. Controlling for confounders, procedural medical specialties earned 37.5 percent more than family medicine, as compared with 15.3 percent for non-procedural medical specialties. This analysis suggests that differences in physician income and resulting incentives are a direct consequence of the payment structure itself, rather than compensation for additional years of training or a reflection of different underlying demographics.

How Does the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Policy Impact the A-H Share Premium?

ABSTRACT Using a monthly panel data of 56 cross-listed companies from November 2011 to November 2017, this study finds that the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Policy significantly reduces the A-H share premium and price disparity after controlling for various factors. In addition, with the recent availability of the fund flow data between the two markets, this paper provides the new evidence that the imbalanced demand of these two markets is a main explanation for the A-H share premium variations.

Effect Of Population Size On Rural Health Insurance Premiums In The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

In the study of health insurance access and affordability in rural areas, a recurring issue is to understand the challenges that programs based upon the competitive market model, such as the Affordable Care Act's Marketplaces, may experience in less populated areas. This article analyzes data for 2013-16 from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, focusing on premium and enrollment data for "state-specific" plans-which offer insurance policies and set premiums at the regional level. In nonmetropolitan counties, each additional plan enrollee was associated with a $0.10 lower per capita biweekly premium, whereas this effect was trivial in metropolitan counties. Low health care provider counts were not associated with higher premiums in nonmetropolitan areas, nor was the degree of insurer competition an important predictor of premiums. However, there was substantial correlation over time, which suggests that some variables may be viewed less as sources of premium variation and more as influencing long-term premium levels. These findings suggest that small risk pools may contribute to the challenges faced by private plans in rural areas, in which case risk reinsurance is a potential policy solution.

Analysis of Price Differences Between A and H Shares

The price difference between A share trading in the Mainland and H share trading in Hong Kong of the same company has been prevailing since inception. Studying the differences could be useful in understanding dissimilarity between the two markets. This paper is devoted to analyze certain company specific and market factors that may influence premiums between A and H shares. An appropriate factor model is built based on a sample from 63 listed companies in both markets from January 2014 to June 2017. Our factors are useful to explain premium variations. In addition to typical market and company specific factors, it is found premium levels are significantly related to the industry sector in general. Meanwhile, it is observed that premiums of many shares are becoming narrower in recent years, which might pave the way to convergence after closer links between the Mainland and Hong Kong stock exchanges.