Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) for Market Risks : A quantitative assessment of the Standard formula and its adequacy for a Swedish insurance company

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this project is to validate the adequacy of the Standard formula, used to calculate the Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR), with respect to a Swedish insurance company. The sub-modules evaluated are Equity risk (type 1) and Interest rate risk. The validation uses a quantitative assessment and the concept of Value at Risk (VaR). Additionally, investment strategies for risk free assets are evaluated through a scenario based analysis. The findings support that the Equity shock of 39%, as proposed in the Standard formula, is appropriate for a diversified portfolio of global equities. Furthermore, to some extent; the Equity shock is also sufficient for a diversified global portfolio with an overweight of Swedish equities. Additionally, the findings shows that the Standard formula for Interest rate risks occasionally underestimates the true Interest rate risk. Furthermore, it’s shown that there are some advantage of selecting an investment strategy that stabilizes the Own fund of an insurance company rather than a strategy that minimizes the SCR.