Combined Ratio
- 02:39
Understand one of the most important ratios in general insurance the combined ratio; made up of the claims ratio and the expense ratio
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Transcript
So when we take a look at the premium and insurance company charges, some of the premium is going to go to paying out claims and some of it is going to be used in expenses. So let's say a customer gives the insurance company $100 in premiums to cover them for a year's worth of potential loss. Of the 100 premiums, some of it is going to be paid out in claims to policyholders. And remember, we're working on the basis of thousands of different policies, so that can be statistically estimated. So in this case, we expect about 80% of the premiums to be paid out to policyholders. Now, bear in mind that doesn't necessarily happen in the same year that you're giving cover 'cause often claims take time to establish and sometimes the actual claim results in a healthcare liability, which can last over many years. But in essence, in this case, we're assuming that around 80% of the premium is going to be potentially paid out to claimants over time. The remaining amount in this case we assume is going to be used up in operational expenses. And that will be the people, the analysts pricing the insurance, the administrators running the insurance company. So in this case, you're not making any underwriting profit because all your premium is being eaten up in expenses and claims being paid out to policyholders. There're a couple of ratios which we use to measure the performance of an insurance company's underwriting. The first is the expense ratio and this just takes the expenses divided by the premiums. Now, this is going to be driven partly by the type of insurance the company's writing. Very predictable lines will typically have low expense ratios 'cause they're easy to establish. You just need a computer. Other lines like terrorism insurance are going to be much more difficult to establish the risk for. So that means the expense ratio for those will be higher. The second ratio is a claims ratio. Pretty obviously, this is the estimated losses, the total losses that are expected to be paid out, not necessarily in the first year but over time divided by the premiums. And that's an accrued expense, that claims ratio. And if we add those two ratios together, the expense ratio plus the claims ratio, we get what we call the combined ratio. And in this case, the combined ratio is 100% and this means that the company's not making any underwriting profit from writing the insurance.