You work for an international life insurer that sells term life insurance with an option to attach critical illness cover. This business has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and you are undertaking a pricing review to set prices for the next year (2021). Monthly monitoring reports have shown that there has been an increase in the amount of policies sold.

(a)Briefly discuss the pricing objectives from the insurance company's perspective and the customer's perspective in these circumstances.

(b)List the key assumptions used to price a term life insurance policy (without critical illness cover) and briefly discuss how the best estimates of these assumptions will each be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

(c)There has been evidence that people have not been visiting their doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, there may be an under-diagnosis of some critical illness conditions in the current year (2020). How can you assess whether this is occurring and what the consequences might be for pricing in 2021?

(d)You are concerned about the long-term profitability of the business. The current profitability target is 15% return on capital. You are able to include a margin to deviate from this target when there are favourable or adverse market conditions.

(i)Describe the cashflows you would project to calculate a premium that would meet the profitability target.

(ii)Discuss the additional analysis you would undertake to determine whether the profitability target is achievable in the current environment.