Newcastle University

Aims

On completion of this module, students should be able to understand the underlying principles of life and non-life insurance. It covers the areas of life insurance and financial planning, underwriting and selection, mortality trends, general insurance, reinsurance and reserving.

Original Summary:
On completion of this module, students will have been introduced to the underlying principles of life and non-life insurance and their uses for controlling risk. The module covers the areas of life insurance and financial planning, underwriting and selection, mortality trends, general insurance, reinsurance and reserving. The module takes a practical approach and illustrates theoretical principles with examples drawn from actual practice throughout. After completing the module students will be well positioned to enter into a wide variety of interesting careers in this area of financial services which is large, expected to exhibit high long term worldwide growth and is robust to short term economic fluctuations.

Outline Of Syllabus

Lecture
      Content
1       Course Introduction

2       Life Insurance
Personal financial planning, life insurance products.
3       Pensions
Methods of securing retirement income adopted by different nations
4       Regulation
The regulation of the sale of retail financial services products
5       Mortality
Mortality tables, trends in mortality, underwriting and selection.
6       Life Insurance Mathematics
Mathematical models of the main policy types.
7       Life Insurance Costing and Reserving
Costing policies, setting reserves for policies.
8       General Insurance
Evaluation of the characteristics of general insurance policies.
9       General Insurance
Evaluation of the characteristics of claims from general insurance policies.
10       General Insurance Costing
Mathematical methods for costing general insurance policies.
11       Reinsurance
The main forms of reinsurance – treaty, excess of loss, catastrophe.
12
      Practical Issues in Costing and Reinsurance
Introduction to key practical issues via case studies.
13
      General Insurance Reserving
Methods of calculating appropriate reserves
14       Course Review

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures will enable the main conceptual and factual elements of the module to be presented efficiently to the students.

The seminars will give the students to practice problem solving skills in relationship to the material they have learned. They will also be improving their interpersonal communication, teamwork and planning and organisation by engaging in a variety of teamwork exercises.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The examination is an appropriate method of assessing knowledge, theoretical understanding and problem solving skills under time constraints as experienced in the industry.

The individual project will enable students to demonstrate high order skills by means of a deep engagement with a particular aspect of the module.

Reassessment will be 100% exam.