Product Description

"The resulting book is an eye opener for this reviewer....This book is worthy of classical status..." —Journal of the International Statistical Institute
The first edition of this bestselling guide to building and using actuarial models presented a thorough treatment of the concepts and methods of linear model analysis and illustrated them with numerical and conceptual examples. This Second Edition features new enhancements that make the book even more useful to students and teachers as well as to practicing professionals seeking better practical command of the material.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #617361 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 720 pages

Review
"The book is well-written. Each chapter contains a good number of examples and exercises for the reader." (Mathematical Reviews, 2005f)

From the Publisher
Much of actuarial science consists of constructing and analyzing mathematical models that describe how fluids flow into and out of an insurance system. This book examines contemporary topics such as risk theory and economics, credibility and stochastic processes with a focus on the loss process, or the outflow of cash due to the payment of benefits.

From the Back Cover
Revised, updated, and even more useful to students, teachers, and practicing professionals

The First Edition of Loss Models was deemed "worthy of classical status" by the Journal of the International Statistical Institute. While retaining its predecessor’s thorough treatment of the concepts and methods of analyzing contingent events, this powerful Second Edition is updated and expanded to offer even more complete and flexible coverage of risk theory, loss distributions, and survival models.

Beginning with a framework for model building and a description of frequency and severity loss data typically available, it shows readers how to combine frequency, severity, and loss models to build aggregate loss models and credibility-based pricing models, and how to analyze loss over multiple time periods. Important features of this new edition include:

• Thorough preparation for relevant parts of preliminary examinations of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS)
• Exercises based on past SOA and CAS exams
• Examples using actual insurance data
• Practical treatment of modern credibility theory
• Data files and more from an ftp site

Loss Models, Second Edition is an important resource, providing a comprehensive, practically motivated toolkit and an excellent reference, for actuaries preparing for SOA and CAS preliminary examinations, students in actuarial science who need to understand loss and risk models, and practicing professionals involved in loss modeling.

Customer Reviews

important topic not often covered
When I took a job to model prediction of loss reserves for workers compensation insurance, I began to realize that the traditional statistical methods that I generally relied n would not help me (without modification). The required modification would be either to transform variables or to model long-tailed probability distributions. This is because in the insurance business you have to reserve for those big catastrophies. The cost data for workers compensation data generally show a high frequency of low to moderate costs... . However occasionally there are a few cases of sever injury causing permanent disability which could run over 1 million dollars. Even though the probability of occurrence is small the cost is so high that it cannot be ignored. Such claims will surely be found when large insurance company cover millions of employees over many years.
The problem occurs when insuring for floods, earthquakes, fires and other disasters. Stuart Klugman and Bob Hogg in 1984 wrote the first introductory text to acquaint statisticians with such probability models that are important in the insurance business. Other books covering the subject were covered in books on risk theory designed for actuaries. This book covers all the topics and assumes mathematical and staistical knowledge at the level of the book by Hogg and Craig (so some calculus is required).

Mathematics for property and casualty insurance actuaries
"Loss Models from Data to Decision" is an excellent book that covers many of the areas of mathematics and statistics that property and casualty insurance (aka general insurance) actuaries are required to know. Topics include: frequency and severity models; aggregate loss models; ruin models; Bayesian statistics; credibility and simulation. The theory is well explained; with worked examples throughout and numerous exercises at the end of each section (these questions are based on past SOA and CAS exam questions, so are directly relevant to people studying for either of these exams). Solutions to the exercises are not provided in this book, but a separate solutions manual is available.

I am a lecturer in Actuarial Studies at an Australian university and set this book for one of my (later-year undergraduate) units. In my opinion, this is the best General Insurance text book available and students whom I have spoken to tell me that they like this book very much, too. I highly recommend this text for all student actuaries.

Good one but for advance users
Nothing else to say. The best book for actuarial mathematics. Also good for risk managers, in particular for operational risk. It does not introduce many concepts but rather take to advance level. Excellent concepts that can be applicable in any topic or situation. A must buy in you want to have your grips on acturial mathematics and concepts