Swiss Annuities and Life Insurance examines the key characteristics of Swiss annuities and life insurance, and explains how the use of these products can help you achieve asset protection, growth, and, in some cases, significant tax planning opportunities. Swiss annuities and life insurance are an excellent alternative investment, particularly for high-net-worth individuals. With this expert guidebook, you too will learn how to safely capitalize on these attractive products.

You don't have to be a multi-millionaire to invest like one!

The Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook covers all key aspects of conducting business, investing and living in Switzerland. It is a unique reference manual featuring over thirty separate chapters, each of them concise and to the point, providing the information that really matters. Besides an introduction to Switzerland's historical, political, social and economic framework, the book covers the Swiss legal system, company and contract law, intellectual property law, personal and corporate taxation, VAT, international tax aspects, real estate, residence, the social security and pension system, Swiss annuities and life insurance, corporate and private banking, and other important subjects. Overview tables, useful checklists, portraits of the Swiss cantons, a bibliography, a comprehensive facts and figures section, as well as a clearly organized address section, make the handbook user-friendly and practice-oriented. The book is aimed at: Company executives who wish to have a clear overview of the legal, tax and economic framework in Switzerland Investors and entrepreneurs interested in investing and doing business in Switzerland Tax and legal advisors, business consultants and fiduciaries English-speakers living, working or doing business in Switzerland

A comprehensive guide to investment guarantees in equity-linked life insurance Due to the convergence of financial and insurance markets, new forms of investment guarantees are emerging which require financial service professionals to become savvier in modeling and risk management. With chapters that discuss stock return models, dynamic hedging, risk measures, Markov Chain Monte Carlo estimation, and much more, this one-stop reference contains the valuable insights and proven techniques that will allow readers to better understand the theory and practice of investment guarantees and equity-linked insurance policies. Mary Hardy, PhD (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries, where she is a frequent speaker. Her research covers topics in life insurance solvency and risk management, with particular emphasis on equity-linked insurance. Hardy is an Associate Editor of the North American Actuarial Journal and the ASTIN Bulletin and is a Deputy Editor of the British Actuarial Journal.

This paper explores insurance as a source of financial system vulnerability. It provides a brief overview of the insurance industry and reviews the risks it faces, as well as several recent failures of insurance companies that had systemic implications. Assimilation of banking-type activities by life insurers appears to be the key systemic vulnerability. Building on this experience and the experience gained under the FSAP, the paper proposes key indicators that should be compiled and used for surveillance of financial soundness of insurance companies and the insurance sector as a whole.

HaIley's Comet has been prominently displayed in many newspapers during the last few months. For the first time in 76 years it appeared this winter, clearly visible against the nocturnal sky. This is an appropriate occasion to point out the fact that Sir Edmund Halley also constructed the world's first life table in 1693, thus creating the scientific foundation of life insurance. Halley's life table and its successors were viewed as deterministic laws, i. e. the number of deaths in any given group and year was considered to be a weIl defined number that could be calculated by means of a life table. However, in reality this number is random. Thus any mathematical treatment of life insurance will have to rely more and more on prob ability theory. By sponsoring this monograph the Swiss Association of Actuaries wishes to support the "modern" probabilistic view oflife contingencies. We are fortu nate that Professor Gerber, an internationally renowned expert, has assumed the task of writing the monograph. We thank the Springer-Verlag and hope that this monograph will be the first in a successful series of actuarial texts. Hans Bühlmann Zürich, March 1986 President Swiss Association of Actuaries Preface Two major developments have influenced the environment of actuarial math ematics. One is the arrival of powerful and affordable computers; the once important problem of numerical calculation has become almost trivial in many instances.