Brigitte Häfliger Actuary at Swiss Life, Zurich

Product development in individual life insurance

"I decided early on to specialise in financial and actuarial mathematics. As a student I was able to gain initial hands-on experience through various job placements at a well-known insurance company, giving me an insight into my future career.
Working on my thesis I gained practical experience of specific issues. This work involved deriving the present value of future surplus payments from insurance obligations. I found it extremely interesting to see how the theory was implemented in practice. We based our calculations on theoretical interest rate models from which we determined a reference interest rate. We then used a Monte Carlo simulation approach for our valuations. Such issues have become increasingly relevant in recent years because of the market-consistent valuations used for riskbased solvency calculations.
I now work for Swiss Life in a team of actuaries, assisting in product development for individual life insurance. I am responsible for developing product innovations in line with technical and market requirements, and help solve actuarial issues involved in our existing insurance portfolio."