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Bayesian credibility estimates a risk's conditional mean by its Bayesian posterior expected value under squared-error loss. When that posterior mean is an affine combination of exposure-weighted individual experience and a prior mean, the coefficient of the experience is its credibility factor. Exact Bayesian credibility is distinct from merely selecting the best affine estimator when the true posterior mean is nonlinear.

A credibility estimate combines a risk's individual experience with population information. In the basic equal-exposure form, the credibility factor $Z$ weights the observed sample mean, while $1-Z$ weights a prior or collective expected value. The Bühlmann credibility premium is the best affine estimate under mean squared error; an exact Bayesian posterior mean can also have this form, as in the natural conjugate credibility identity.

For a common gamma distribution (shape $\alpha$, rate $\beta$) frequency prior distribution and conditionally independent Poisson distribution yearly counts of means $w_j\Theta$, observed average amounts $y_j$ determine counts $k_j=w_j{y}_j/c_j$. The posterior distribution shape is $\alpha +{\sum }_j{k}_j$ and rate is $\beta +{\sum }_j{w}_j$. The future per-policy mean is the display, equal to credibility factor $W/(W+\beta )$ times ${\sum }_j(w_j/W)(c_{n+1}/c_j)y_j$ plus the complementary weight times $c_{n+1}\alpha /\beta$. The data must lie on their count lattice; impossible noninteger recovered counts have zero likelihood.

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For a positive-support exponential family $f(x\mid \theta )=p(x)e^{-\theta x}/q(\theta )$, normalization gives $m(\theta )=-q^{\prime }(\theta )/q(\theta )$. The natural conjugate prior proportional to $q(\theta {)}^{-k}{e}^{-k\mu \theta }$ has logarithmic derivative $k(m(\theta )-\mu )$. If its endpoint density values vanish, integration gives prior expected value $\mathbb{E}[m(\Theta )]=\mu$. Observations update $k$ to $k+n$ and $\mu$ to $(k\mu +{\sum }_i{x}_i)/(k+n)$. The endpoint control for a Laplace-family conjugate posterior justifies the same mean identity after updating, giving an exact credibility estimate with credibility factor $n/(n+k)$.

A credibility factor is the weight assigned to a particular risk's observed experience when blending it with a population or manual premium. In the Bühlmann model, the blend is the best affine mean-square predictor, rather than automatically the full posterior mean.

Let $v=\mathbb{E}[{\sigma }^2(\theta )]$, the expected process variance, and assume the displayed second moments are finite. The law of total expectation gives $\mathbb{E}{X}_i=m$. The law of total variance and law of total covariance giveFor the second formula, the conditional covariance is zero by conditional independence, while the covariance of the conditional means is $\mathrm{Var}\mu (\theta )=a$, the variance of hypothetical means. Likewisebecause $\mathbb{E}[X_i-\mu (\theta )\mid \theta ]=0$.

To derive the Bühlmann credibility premium, minimize $\mathbb{E}[(\mu (\theta )-b_0-{\sum }_i{b}_i{X}_i{)}^2]$. Differentiating in $b_0$ sets the predictor's mean to $m$. The remaining normal equations areFor $v>0$, subtracting any two rows forces all $b_i$ to be equal, then gives $b_i=a/(v+na)$. Thus the premium and factor areThe same affine premium predicts $X_{n+1}$: conditional independence makes $\mathbb{E}[(X_{n+1}-\hat{\mu }{)}^2]=v+\mathbb{E}[(\mu (\theta )-\hat{\mu }{)}^2]$, so minimizers agree. If $v=0$, every year's amount equals $\mu (\theta )$ almost surely, and $Z=1$ gives the exact risk mean even though the coefficient vector need not be unique.

For fixed $a>0,n$, $\partial Z/\partial v=-na/(na+v{)}^2<0$. Thus more within-risk variation decreases credibility: individual experience becomes less informative, $Z\to 0$ as $v\to \infty$, and the premium tends to $m$. Increasing the number of observed years has the opposite effect.

For numerical estimation from a balanced panel, assume the $k$ risks are independent draws from the same risk population, with comparable exposures, and $n,k\ge 2$. SetConditionally, each within-risk sample variance has mean ${\sigma }^2({\theta }_s)$; hence $\mathbb{E}\hat{v}=v$. The risk sample means have variance $a+v/n$, so $\mathbb{E}B=a+v/n$. Therefore $\tilde{a}=B-\hat{v}/n$ is an unbiased method of moments estimate of $a$. For a usable nonnegative variance estimate take $\hat{a}=\max (0,\tilde{a})$, noting that this truncation sacrifices exact unbiasedness.

The balanced-panel method-of-moments credibility estimate for risk $s$ is consequentlyIf $\hat{a}=0$ and $\hat{v}>0$, use zero credibility. If both estimates are zero, the within and between sums of squares are zero and all the observed amounts coincide; any blend gives that same premium. With only one year per risk or only one risk, these within/between estimators are unavailable, so external structural estimates or additional assumptions are necessary.

In the Bühlmann model, one policy has a random risk parameter $\Theta$. Conditional on $\Theta$, its annual observations $X_i$ are independent and identically distributed random variables, with mean $m(\Theta )$ and variance $v(\Theta )$. Put $m_0=\mathbb{E}[m(\Theta )]$, let $v=\mathbb{E}[v(\Theta )]$ be the expected process variance, and let $a=\mathrm{Var}(m(\Theta ))$ be the variance of hypothetical means. Assume the required second moments are finite.

The Bühlmann credibility premium is the best affine estimate of $m(\Theta )$ under mean squared error. After choosing the intercept to make the estimate unbiased, write it as $m_0+{\sum }_{i=1}^n{b}_i(X_i-m_0)$. If $B={\sum }_i{b}_i$, the law of total variance and conditional independence give its errorFor fixed $B$, the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality minimizes the last sum at $b_i=B/n$. Differentiating $a(1-B{)}^2+v{B}^2/n$ gives $B=na/(na+v)$. Thus the credibility factor and credibility premium areThe ratio form assumes $a>0$; when $a=0$ and $v>0$, the conditional mean is constant and $Z=0$. Predicting $X_{n+1}$ rather than its conditional mean adds the constant $v$ to the error and leaves the optimal affine estimate unchanged.

Here the latent intensity has a Pareto distribution with shape three and lower bound one. For $r<3$, its moments are $\mathbb{E}[{\Theta }^r]=3{\int }_1^{\infty }{\theta }^{r-4}d\theta =3/(3-r)$. ConsequentlyThe equality for $v$ uses the Poisson distribution conditional variance $v(\Theta )=\Theta$. There are two years of experience, so $Z=1/2$ and the observed sample mean is $k/2$. The Poisson credibility with a shape-three Pareto intensity is thereforeIn particular it equals $2$ when $k=5$.

For the exact Bayesian credibility estimate, the total count conditional on $\Theta =\theta$ has Poisson distribution of mean $2\theta$. Multiplication of its likelihood by the prior distribution density gives a Bayesian posterior density proportional to ${\theta }^{k-4}{e}^{-2\theta }$ on $\theta >1$. At $k=5$, its normalizing integral and first-moment integral areHence the next-year predictive expected value isThe Bühlmann credibility premium optimizes over affine estimates, whereas the Bayesian posterior mean optimizes over all square-integrable estimates. This explains why the two credibility estimates need not agree for this nonconjugate prior.

A credibility premium estimates a risk's expected future claims by combining its own observed experience with a collective or prior mean. In its basic form $Z\overline{X}+(1-Z)\mu$, the credibility factor $Z\in [0,1]$ is the weight assigned to individual experience. Larger credibility places less weight on pooling with the population. The amounts below are pure expected-claim premiums; no additional expense or profit loading is specified.

Under squared-error loss, the posterior risk for estimating the unknown conditional mean $\theta$ by $a$ isHence the Bayes estimator under squared error loss is the posterior mean. In the equal-year model, conditional independence makes the likelihood proportional to $\exp [-{\sum }_{j=1}^n(X_j-\theta {)}^2/(2{\sigma }_1^2)]$. Combining it with the normal prior and completing the square givesBecause $\mathbb{E}[X_{n+1}\mid \theta ]=\theta$, the required estimator is $m_n$; it also equals the predictive mean $\mathbb{E}[X_{n+1}\mid \mathbf{X}]$. The normal-normal credibility expression isThis is exact Bayesian credibility, not merely the best linear approximation to a possibly nonlinear posterior mean.

For unequal life counts use the usual exposure model: individual-life losses are conditionally independent with variance $v$, and the annual totals are conditionally independent given the same $\theta$. ThenThe dot denotes the stipulated normal approximation. The positive exposures $m_j$ are known. Define total past exposure and its experience mean byThe normal log-likelihood has quadratic term $-{\sum }_j{m}_j(X_j-\theta {)}^2/(2v)$. With the prior $N(\mu ,{\sigma }^2)$, normal-normal conjugacy with unequal exposures gives posterior variance and meanTherefore the estimated pure premium per life for year $n+1$ has the normal-normal credibility with unequal exposures formIt is also an exact normal-model Bühlmann–Straub credibility estimate. The individual experience is exposure-weighted: the unweighted mean of the yearly per-life observations would generally discard the different precisions.

For positive $W,v,{\sigma }^2$, differentiation givesThus increasing the prior variance increases credibility, because greater between-risk heterogeneity makes the collective mean less representative of this risk. Increasing the individual process variance decreases credibility, because a fixed amount of observed experience becomes noisier. The future exposure supplies no new observation, so it does not enter $Z_W$. It only scales the total premium:The independent-life variance scaling is part of the usual exposure interpretation. Without it, a known variance $v$ for one life does not determine the variance of a total: a common pairwise conditional covariance $c$ would add $m_j(m_j-1)c$ to $m_{j}v$. Similarly, cross-year conditional dependence would change the joint likelihood. Those assumptions are implicit in applying the standard credibility model to the final paragraph.

Use the shape-rate convention for the gamma distribution $\theta \sim \mathrm{Gamma}(\alpha ,\beta )$, with prior distribution probability density function proportional to ${\theta }^{\alpha -1}{e}^{-\beta \theta }$. The observations are independent conditional on the common parameter $\theta$. Unconditionally a common nondegenerate prior distribution induces covariance $\alpha /{\beta }^2$ between distinct observations, so the Bayesian inference model requires conditional independence.

For unit-exposure counts, the likelihood is proportional to ${\theta }^{{\sum }_i{x}_i}{e}^{-n\theta }$. Multiplying by the prior distribution givesThe future count has conditional expectation $\theta$, so posterior distribution averaging givesThis is an exact Bayesian credibility estimate, with credibility factor $Z=n/(n+\beta )$ and collective mean $\alpha /\beta$.

For the insurance exposure and claims inflation calculation put $c_j=c(1+r{)}^j$, assuming $c>0$, $1+r>0$ and positive policy counts $n_j$. Let $K_j$ be the total claim count in year $j$. Conditional independence of the policy counts gives $K_j\mid \theta \sim \mathrm{Pois}(n_j\theta )$, and the observed average amount satisfiesFor possible observations, the recovered $k_j$ are nonnegative integers. If they are not, the data have zero likelihood under the model and no conditional posterior distribution is defined for those impossible values.

Write $W={\sum }_{j=1}^n{n}_j$ and $K={\sum }_{j=1}^n{k}_j$. Since $Y_j$ and $K_j$ determine each other, conditioning on the observed average amounts is equivalent to conditioning on these counts. The independent yearly count likelihood isThe Poisson-gamma conjugacy with unequal exposures therefore givesFor the future year, $\mathbb{E}[Y_{n+1}\mid \theta ]=c_{n+1}\theta$; the number of future policies cancels because $Y_{n+1}$ is a per-policy average. HencewithThe collective mean $m$ is the prior distribution expected claim amount per policy in the future year's monetary units. The experience mean $m(\mathbf{y})$ first inflates each past per-policy amount to that same future year and then averages with policy-exposure weights. Equivalently, it estimates annual claim frequency by total observed claims divided by total past insurance exposure and converts that frequency to the future claim cost. This is inflation-adjusted Poisson-gamma credibility.

For fixed prior distribution parameters, $Z$ increases strictly with total past insurance exposure: $dZ/dW=\beta /(W+\beta {)}^2>0$, and $Z\to 1$ as $W\to \infty$. The prior distribution weight decreases to zero; $\beta$ acts as equivalent prior distribution insurance exposure. With no past insurance exposure the appropriate weight is zero and the prediction is $m$, without defining an empirical experience mean.

Let $s={\sum }_{j=1}^n{x}_j$. The conditional joint likelihood function of the observed counts isThe prior is a gamma distribution with shape two and rate $\lambda$. Multiplication by its density gives the unnormalized posterior density ${\theta }^{s+1}{e}^{-(n+\lambda )\theta }$. Normalizing with the gamma function yieldsThus Poisson-gamma conjugacy gives $\Theta \mid \mathbf{x}\sim \mathrm{Gamma}(s+2,n+\lambda )$. Conditional on $\Theta$ and the past data, the next count has mean $\Theta$, so the law of total expectation givesWith $\overline{x}=s/n$ and prior mean $m_0=2/\lambda$, this is exactlyHere $n\ge 1$, $\lambda >0$, and the credibility factor increases to one as the number of observed years grows. The denominator uses the prior rate $\lambda$ and total exposure $n$; it does not add two to the exposure when adding the prior shape.

A credibility estimate combines a risk's observed experience with collective or prior information, typically as $Z\overline{X}+(1-Z)m_0$. The credibility factor $Z\in [0,1]$ is the weight assigned to the individual experience: more reliable or more extensive data generally increases it. Bayesian credibility treats the risk parameter as random with a prior distribution and predicts future claims by averaging the conditional claim mean under its posterior distribution. Under squared-error loss this posterior predictive mean is optimal. It need not be an affine combination in every Bayesian model; the Poisson-gamma conjugacy calculation below yields that credibility form exactly, rather than as a best-linear approximation.

Write $A=\alpha +\beta$ and keep $p_0=\alpha /A$ fixed. Then $\alpha =p_{0}A$, $\beta =(1-p_0)A$, while the fixed observed years and exposures leave $M$ unchanged. The credibility factor isAs prior concentration $A$ increases without bound,The beta prior variance is $p_0(1-p_0)/(A+1)$, which tends to zero while its mean stays fixed. Increasing $A$ therefore makes the prior increasingly concentrated and reduces the influence of the same finite data. This explains the limiting Bayesian credibility estimate, rather than merely treating $\alpha ,\beta$ as two larger arbitrary parameters.

A credibility estimate combines a risk's own observed experience with a collective or prior mean, in the form $Z{\hat{\mu }}_{\mathrm{experience}}+(1-Z){\mu }_{\mathrm{collective}}$. The credibility factor $Z\in [0,1]$ is the weight given to that risk's experience. Bayesian credibility starts with a prior distribution for a latent risk parameter, updates it using observations, and estimates the conditional risk mean by its Bayesian posterior expected value under squared-error loss. In conjugate models this posterior mean can have exactly the displayed credibility form.

For the unequal policy exposures, defineConditional independence of the binomial distribution observations gives the likelihood, up to a factor not depending on $\theta$,Multiplication by the beta distribution prior therefore gives Beta-binomial conjugacy:Both posterior parameters are positive, since $0\le s\le M$ and the prior parameters are positive.

The conditional target is $\mu (\theta )=m_{k+1}\theta$. To verify the quadratic-loss rule directly, for any proposed estimate $d$ and observed data $\mathcal{D}$,The variance term does not depend on $d$, so the unique Bayes estimator under squared error loss is the posterior mean. Applying the beta mean formula givesIt is also the posterior expected future claim count, by the tower property of conditional expectation.

Let $p_0=\alpha /(\alpha +\beta )$ be the collective prior claim probability and $\hat{p}=s/M$ the observed claims per policy. ThenTherefore the exact beta-binomial credibility with unequal exposures isThe individual experience must be weighted by exposure: $s/M$ is the policy-weighted frequency, not the unweighted average of $x_i/m_i$ when the $m_i$ differ. The factor multiplies next-year expected counts after scaling both component probabilities by $m_{k+1}$.

The ratio of expected process variance to variance of hypothetical means is $K=s^2/v=(\alpha +1)/(k-2)$, and the credibility factor is $Z=n/(n+K)$. Holding $\alpha ,\lambda$ fixed, an increase in $k$ decreases $K$. Hence the credibility factor increases, approaching one as $k$ tends to infinity. Extending the formula to real $k>2$ makes the sign explicit:For the integer values in the model this establishes the same strict monotonicity. The collective claim expected value $m=\alpha /[\lambda (k-1)]$ also changes, but the conclusion concerns the relative weight of experience: conditional noise declines faster than the variation of the risk means.

Set $h=\mathbb{E}\theta >0$ and $w=\mathrm{Var}(\theta )>0$. Keeping $h$ fixed in the gamma distribution family gives $\alpha =h^2/w$ and $\lambda =h/w$. The ratio of expected process variance to variance of hypothetical means becomesAs the prior variance $w$ decreases, $K$ increases, so the credibility factor decreases. In the limit $w\downarrow 0$, $Z\downarrow 0$: the risk parameter is already essentially known from the prior, leaving little need to use the noisy sample mean. The population claim expected value $h/(k-1)$ remains fixed throughout this comparison.

The PDF gives an inverse-gamma distribution with shape $k$ and scale $\theta$, and a gamma distribution prior with shape $\alpha$ and rate $\lambda$. Write $\mu (\theta )=\theta /(k-1)$. The supplied conditional moments, together with $\mathbb{E}\theta =\alpha /\lambda$ and $\mathbb{E}{\theta }^2=\alpha (\alpha +1)/{\lambda }^2$, give the three structural quantities of the Bühlmann model:Here $v$ is the variance of hypothetical means and $s^2$ the expected process variance. The law of total covariance and conditional independence of different years implyAll these quantities are finite because $k>2$.

For any coefficients $c_i$, minimizing the mean squared error over the intercept first gives $c_0=m(1-{\sum }_i{c}_i)$. Let $Y=\mu (\theta )-m$ and $W_i=X_i-m$. Expanding the remaining mean squared error givesIts normal equations are $s^2{c}_i+v{\sum }_j{c}_j=v$ for every $i$. Since $s^2>0$, subtracting any two equations shows that all $c_i$ agree. The quadratic part is strictly positive for every nonzero coefficient change, so the solution is the unique global minimizer. Solving givesA credibility estimate combines individual experience with the collective expected value, using an experience weight $Z\in [0,1]$. In this equal-exposure setting, the Bühlmann credibility premium isThus the computed coefficients give exactly a credibility estimate, with a fixed credibility factor determined by known parameters and the number of observed years. This is Bühlmann credibility for inverse-gamma observations.

For the final Bayesian calculation, the likelihood function in $\theta$ is proportional to ${\theta }^{nk}\exp (-\theta {\sum }_i{x}_i^{-1})$. Multiplication by the gamma distribution prior gives the Gamma prior for an inverse-gamma scale updateUnder quadratic loss, the conditional risk of an estimate $d$ is $\mathrm{Var}(\mu (\theta )\mid x)+(d-\mathbb{E}[\mu (\theta )\mid x]{)}^2$. Its minimizer is therefore the posterior mean:This is not a fixed-weight arithmetic-mean credibility estimate. For $n=2$, the observations $(1,3)$ and $(2,2)$ have the same sample mean, but reciprocal sums $4/3$ and $1$, hence different posterior means. For any $n>2$, append the same positive observations to these two samples. For $n=1$, the estimate is $Cx/(1+\lambda x)$, with $C=(\alpha +k)/(k-1)$; its second derivative is $-2C\lambda /(1+\lambda x{)}^3\ne 0$, so it is not affine either. Symmetry in the observations would force equal slopes in any affine representation, so these examples also exclude a general fixed-coefficient linear representation.

One can express the posterior mean as a broader data-dependent blend. With $A={\sum }_i{x}_i^{-1}$ and harmonic mean $H=n/A$, it isThis weights a harmonic-mean-based experience estimate, and the weight itself depends on the observations. It is not the credibility estimate based on $\overline{X}$ and the fixed Bühlmann credibility factor derived above.

A credibility estimate blends the risk's own sample mean with a population or prior expected value. In the basic equal-exposure form it is $Z\overline{X}+(1-Z)\mu$, where the credibility factor $Z\in [0,1]$ is the weight attached to the individual experience. More data ordinarily increase that weight; greater within-risk variation relative to between-risk variation reduces it.

Write $m(\theta )=\mu (\theta )$ for the conditional claim expected value, keeping $\mu$ for the prior-level parameter. Normalization of the probability density function givesAt interior points of its finite domain, differentiation under the integral sign yieldsThis is an instance of the exponential-family derivative identities for natural parameter $-\theta$. The minus sign is present in the PDF and is lost in the converted TeX. The conditional variance is likewise $(\log q{)}^{\prime \prime }(\theta )$.

Differentiate the log of the natural conjugate prior:Integrate on a compact subinterval and then let its endpoints approach those of the parameter interval. The prescribed vanishing of the prior density eliminates the boundary term. Since $m(\theta )\ge 0$, monotone convergence theorem justifies the limit of its expectation, and the identity givesIn particular the assumed proper prior and boundary conditions themselves establish this first-moment integrability.

For $T={\sum }_{i=1}^n{x}_i$ and $\overline{x}=T/n$, conditional independence makes the likelihood function proportional to $q(\theta {)}^{-n}{e}^{-\theta T}$. Multiplication by the prior distribution gives the Bayesian posteriorThus this is a conjugate prior family, with updated parameters

The integration-by-parts calculation for the posterior mean also needs vanishing posterior boundary values. Here that property can be checked, rather than assumed. Let $a,b$ be the essential lower and upper endpoints of the claim support. Every nondegenerate tilted claim law has $a<m(\theta )<b$, so the established prior mean satisfies $a<\mu <b$. Supported observations have $\overline{x}\in [a,b]$; hence $a<{\mu }_n<b$. At a finite parameter endpoint the prior's vanishing forces $q(\theta )\to \infty$, because its exponential factor has a finite positive limit; the increased power $q^{-k_n}$ makes the posterior vanish there too. At $\theta \to +\infty$, choose $a<d<{\mu }_n$ with positive base-measure mass below $d$. Then $q(\theta )\ge C{e}^{-d\theta }$ and the unnormalized posterior is at most $C^{-k_n}{e}^{-k_n({\mu }_n-d)\theta }\to 0$. At $\theta \to -\infty$, choose ${\mu }_n<d<b$ with positive mass above $d$ to obtain the corresponding bound $C^{-k_n}{e}^{k_n(d-{\mu }_n)\theta }\to 0$. These bounds also ensure posterior propriety at infinite endpoints. This is the endpoint control for a Laplace-family conjugate posterior.

Apply the previous score integration to the Bayesian posterior. The natural conjugate credibility identity isThus $Z=n/(n+k)$ is the credibility factor. This is an exact posterior mean, rather than an affine approximation to one.

For the specific shape-two gamma distribution, takeThen $m(\theta )=2/\theta$ and $\mathrm{Var}(X\mid \theta )=2/{\theta }^2$. The gamma rate gamma conjugacy prior isthat is, $\Theta \sim \mathrm{Gamma}(2k+1,\text{rate }k\mu )$. Its normalizing constant in the notation of the question is $c(\mu ,k)=\Gamma (2k+1)/(k\mu {)}^{2k+1}$. The gamma distribution density vanishes at both zero and infinity for $k>0$. The posterior has shape $2k+2n+1$ and rate $k\mu +T$, so its conditional-mean posterior mean is again $(k\mu +T)/(k+n)$.

For the last calculation, gamma distribution integration givesThe second identity requires the printed $k>1/2$. Therefore the expected process variance and variance of hypothetical means, denoted by $a,b$ in this question, areConsequently $a/b=k$, and the Bühlmann credibility factor agrees with the exact Bayesian weight:This is the exact Bühlmann credibility for gamma claims, expressed using the reciprocal rate as the random scale. The symbols $a,b$ here are the process and between-risk variances, respectively; their roles should not be interchanged when comparing with other notation for the Bühlmann model.

Write $m(\lambda )=\mathbb{E}(X_i\mid \lambda )$ and $v(\lambda )=\mathrm{Var}(X_i\mid \lambda )$. The Bühlmann model uses the finite structural parametersHere $v$ is the expected process variance and $a$ is the variance of hypothetical means. The target is the latent conditional mean $m(\lambda )$, rather than the realized next count. The Bühlmann credibility estimate is the best affine predictor of that target under mean squared error.

The law of total expectation and law of total variance give $\mathbb{E}{X}_i=m_0$ and $\mathrm{Var}(X_i)=v+a$. Conditional independence gives $\mathrm{Cov}(X_i,X_j\mid \lambda )=0$ for $i\ne j$, and the law of total covariance therefore yieldsTo derive the optimal predictor, consider $d=A+{\sum }_{i=1}^n{b}_i{X}_i$. Minimizing with respect to the intercept gives $A=m_0(1-{\sum }_i{b}_i)$. Thus $d=m_0+{\sum }_i{b}_i(X_i-m_0)$. The linear least-squares projection normal equations areFor $v>0$, subtraction of any two equations forces all $b_i$ equal. Substituting a common coefficient then gives $b_i=a/(v+na)$. Equivalently, the mean squared error of the centered predictor is $a-2a{\sum }_i{b}_i+v{\sum }_i{b}_i^2+a({\sum }_i{b}_i{)}^2$, a convex quadratic with precisely these normal equations. HenceThe ratio notation assumes $a>0$; the credibility factor formula $na/(na+v)$ also handles $a=0,v>0$. If $a=0$, the target is the constant $m_0$ almost surely. If $v=0,a>0$, one observation already equals $m(\lambda )$ almost surely, and the average gives it exactly. If both vanish, the target and observations are constant.

The result optimizes over affine functions of the observations. It need not equal the unrestricted posterior mean; exact Bayesian inference generally depends on the whole prior and likelihood, whereas the Bühlmann credibility estimate uses these second-moment structural parameters.

The structural parameters remain $m_0=2$, $v=2$ and $a=1/3$, so the credibility factor after $n$ years is $Z_n=n/(n+6)$. Writing $C_n={\sum }_{i=1}^n{x}_i$, the Bühlmann credibility estimate isThe target is $\mathbb{E}(X_{n+1}\mid \lambda )=\lambda$. It is also the best affine predictor of the next year's count, because its extra conditional noise has zero covariance with past observations.

Conditional on $\lambda$, a Poisson distribution has both conditional expectation and conditional variance equal to $\lambda$. For the uniform distribution on $(1,3)$,Thus $K=v/a=6$ and the one-year credibility factor is $Z_1=1/7$. With the observed count equal to one, the Bühlmann credibility estimate of the next year's conditional claim expected value isThe estimate gives relatively little weight to one year because the expected process variance is six times the variance of hypothetical means.