A Comprehensive Time-Series Analysis Essay

The report is mainly focused on the structural time series model as it is applied as a means of portraying the structural behavior of life insurance demand. The study is focused on the impact of selected variables including the price level, revenue, interest rate, seemingly perpetual joblessness and population on life insurance demand. Problem The importance of life insurance companies has increased significantly over the past several years. However, despite this remarkable rise, there is little that is known about the structural behavior of the demand for the products and services offered by life insurance companies, and what external factors drive this demand. The problem of this study aims to tackle is the behavior of life insurance demand within a period of deregulation and reform that is existing within the industry, also exploring the relationship between demand and a specified set of explanatory variables over this time. Feasibility This project has the prospect of being highly feasible. Although there is very little research with regards to life insurance there are extant research conducted pertaining to life insurance and other kinds of insurance in other regions of the world (e. g. Southeast Asia) that is similar in several aspects to our study. Aside from this, the proponents of this research are leaders in the field of life insurance and as such their study is heavily grounded on years of experience and knowledge in the field. This shows the feasibility of such an endeavor. Audience The primary audience for this market study may be useful in assisting life insurance companies in the various facets that comprise their current corporate strategy for Life insurance. One of the cases that this paper can be applied is for the case of seasonal issues. Secondly, this research and similar research in this area can be of interest to other institutions that are similarly involved in life insurance. For example, it might be useful to generalize the results of the comparison of forecasting models to other categories of financial intermediaries such as banks and monetary agencies providing aid in life insurance issues. Topics to investigate This report intends to examine clearly the following areas pertinent to Life Insurance: †¢ Provide a very innovative perspective to the study of life insurance demand. †¢ Determine the relationship between the cyclical and trend components of demand and the specified set of economic variables affecting life insurance. Determine whether insurance demand is stochastic using an singular variation model o Determine if life insurance demand has a deterministic seasonal component attached to it existing within the first quarter of each year of the sample period and a relative fall during the fourth quarter of the year. †¢ Utilize a seemingly unrelated time series model in order to test for the presence of common factors. †¢ Investigate the forecasting power of the singular variation model when it is opposed to the multivariate model that includes explanatory variables Methods/Procedure In an effort to provide an original perspective towards the study of life insurance demand and overcome inadequacies in previous research, this study employs the structural time series model. As opposed to traditional methods, this methodology is based on representing explicitly the components of a series. While these components cannot be observed directly their usefulness can be found in an economic point of view. This paper is based on a sample of quarterly, seasonally unadjusted insurance data covering the period between the second quarter of 1980 and the fourth quarter of 2003 that results in 90 total observations. The main advantage of using quarterly data, as opposed to annual data, is that it allows us to address possible seasonal fluctuations appropriately. Qualifications/Facilities/Resources The researchers of this study are esteemed experts in the field. Part of the group hails from a college institution under the Department of Economics and Finance. The rest are expert leaders in the field of life insurance and are employed in multinational commercial insurance companies. The group is knowledgeable in the statistical method to be used and have been involved both directly and indirectly in the creation of research pertinent to Life insurance.