Harold Cooper, aged 34, has accepted the position of Vice President for Marketing at Incorporated Engineering. He has received a copy of his employee benefits package. The benefits seemed to be extensive, though the descriptions are too technical to be understood without an HR representative explanation.

To assess the value of the benefits package to himself and his family, Harold has decided to systematically apply the risk management process. That is he and his wife plan to list all of their exposure loss, along with estimates of the likely frequency and severity of each exposure.

The benefits from Incorporated Engineering focus primarily on exposure due to accidents, sickness, death and retirement. Harold is very concerned about all the possible ways his death or loss of health could affect his family, including his children and a nephew in his charge. He and his wife work full time to maintain their desired standard of living. If he or his wife should die the survivor would definitely face financial difficulties.

Additionally Harold is sufficiently confident about his future success with Incorporated Engineering that he suspects his death might cause problems for the company itself. Similarly a lengthy illness that kept him out of work for several months (or years) might cause problems for both Incorporated Engineering and the Cooper family. That is not even including the ever increasing cost of medical care itself. Therefore Harold knows that he needs to plan for both possibilities with realistic assessments of these exposures.

(Adopted from Risk Management and Insurance; Trieschmann, Hoyt and Sommer)

Questions 1

A. How would you advise Harold about differentiating between frequency and severity of possible losses? (4 marks)

B. Give one example of frequency reduction and discuss the TWO (2) special forms of severity reduction. (6 marks)

C. Outline FIVE (5) types of potential losses associated with the risk of Harold Coopers premature death. (5 marks)

D. Discuss the TWO (2) ways in which Incorporated Engineering can lose money if Harold Cooper should die prematurely. (5 marks)

E. Discuss any TWO (2) factors influencing the need to partially or fully replace Harolds or his wifes income if either of them should die for their surviving children or either spouse.

(5 marks)