Loading monotonicity of weighted premiums, and total positivity properties of weight functions

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. We consider the construction of insurance premiums that are monotonically increasing with respect to a loading parameter. By introducing weight functions that are totally positive of higher order, we derive higher monotonicity properties of generalized weighted premiums; in part...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Richards, Donald, Uhler, Caroline
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier BV 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135114
Description
Summary:© 2019 Elsevier Inc. We consider the construction of insurance premiums that are monotonically increasing with respect to a loading parameter. By introducing weight functions that are totally positive of higher order, we derive higher monotonicity properties of generalized weighted premiums; in particular, we deduce for weight functions that are totally positive of order three a monotonicity property of the variance-to-mean ratio, or index of dispersion, of the loss variable. We derive the higher order total positivity properties of some ratios that arise in actuarial and insurance analysis of combined risks. Further, we examine seven classes of weight functions that have appeared in the literature and we ascertain the higher order total positivity properties of those functions.