Log-normal or over-dispersed poisson?

Although both over-dispersed Poisson and log-normal chain-ladder models are popular in claim reserving, it is not obvious when to choose which model. Yet, the two models are obviously different. While the over-dispersed Poisson model imposes the variance to mean ratio to be common across the array,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Harnau, J. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018
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Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
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Summary:Although both over-dispersed Poisson and log-normal chain-ladder models are popular in claim reserving, it is not obvious when to choose which model. Yet, the two models are obviously different. While the over-dispersed Poisson model imposes the variance to mean ratio to be common across the array, the log-normal model assumes the same for the standard deviation to mean ratio. Leveraging this insight, we propose a test that has the power to distinguish between the two models. The theory is asymptotic, but it does not build on a large size of the array and, instead, makes use of information accumulating within the cells. The test has a non-standard asymptotic distribution; however, saddle point approximations are available. We show in a simulation study that these approximations are accurate and that the test performs well in finite samples and has high power. © 2018 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
ISBN:22279091 (ISSN)
DOI:10.3390/risks6030070