Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 45 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The claim law is an Erlang distribution of shape two and rate . Direct integration, using for , gives its moment-generating functionDifferentiating at zero gives . The positive relative safety loading condition for the classical risk model is thereforeThe adjustment coefficient is the positive root in the finite-transform domain ofSet and . For , division by reduces the equation toThe two roots are . The minus root lies strictly between zero and one: positivity follows from , and the numerator is smaller than . The plus root exceeds one and is outside the moment-generating function's domain. Consequently the adjustment coefficient for shape-two Erlang claims isThe zero root of the original equation is not an adjustment coefficient. The increasing secant slope on also establishes uniqueness of the positive root.
Now set . Under quota share reinsurance, the retained payment is . For , the change of variables yieldsHere the second gamma parameter is the rate. In particular, and . At full cession the retained payment instead has a point mass at zero.
The reinsurer's expected annual payments are , so its loaded premium is . Subtract it from the original premium income to obtain the direct insurer's net premium rateIts expected retained claim outflow is . Thusby the stipulated lower bound on . In particular , so the retained portfolio satisfies the net profitability condition. Its relative safety loading is .
Apply the same adjustment coefficient for shape-two Erlang claims formula with scale and net premium . WritinggivesEquivalently it is the positive solution, with , of
For fixed positive initial capital, a larger adjustment coefficient reduces the exponential upper bound from the Lundberg inequality. It also makes the large-capital decay exponent in the Cramér–Lundberg ruin asymptotic larger. These are the reasons for maximizing as a ruin-risk criterion; the coefficient alone need not order exact finite-capital ruin probabilities for arbitrary different models.
If , then and is constant. The equal-loading quota share and vanishing retention relation becomesThe numerator is positive for , so decreases strictly with and tends to infinity as . There is no maximizing retention in the stipulated interval ; the best limit is full cession. If the endpoint is admitted as an idealized contract, all claims are transferred and the net premium income is zero, leaving the direct insurer's capital constant and its ultimate ruin probability zero. At that endpoint the coefficient equation is identically zero, so it no longer defines a unique finite adjustment coefficient. Calling optimal requires this explicit extension of the original admissible set.