Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Insurance Industry Finance Essay

For those that are writing a final paper, there have been some requests for ideas. Here are a few thoughts:
Climate change, e.g., the effects on the insurance industry. What role can the insurance industry play in developing solutions, e.g., securitization.
The effects of the current pandemic on the insurance industry. Pandemics in general, e.g., how did the 1918 pandemic affect insurers? We had 100 years to prepare for this one. Do insurers buy pandemic reinsurance? Are there pandemic catastrophe bonds?
Financial planning and longevity risk, e.g., product ideas. For example, longevity annuities). How do they work, how are they priced, how do they fit into an overall financial security plan?
Financial planning and financial security in general. Is it changing? Does your generation feel like they will have financial security? Mine did. We all assumed we would be multimillionaires. I read a lot of headlines that suggest that is not true anymore. Why is that?
Create a product that doesn't exist that you see a need for in the market.
Anything we've discussed during class that you are interested in and want to research in more detail: For example, reinsurance and securitization of risk (upcoming), product pricing, ALM, capital requirements.
If you are particularly interested in a segment of the insurance and risk management industry, or a particular product, this is a good opportunity to research it and write about it.

Research Paper When writing a document or presentation in your career, it is best to look for guidance by reading presentations within your own firm, and well known actual documents and presentations that have been successful. For example, in finance specifically, the actual initial pitch books (i.e., the presentations made to prospective first investors) created for firms such as Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb are online. See, for example, here. The following is a guide to what constitutes a well written final paper for this class. Keep in mind that the primary goal is to learn something by doing research. My experience has been that there is a high correlation between the quality of the paper and the amount of work and learning that was accomplished doing the research. All of the following are equally important. English Usage I put this first, because in the business world, errors like these are fatal, especially those in the first item below. They will damage your credibility. Readers will discount all of your other hard work. 1. Spelling errors, punctuation errors, and obvious mistakes such as the same word or entire sentence appearing in succession. We all make mistakes. However, since the software identifies most of these errors for you, errors of this type are not excusable. They reveal you have not taken the time to proofread your document. 2. More generally, some of the common problems I see are changing tenses in a single sentence, misuse of words, repeating the same phrase or idea over, and over again, sentences running on excessively. Never stop striving to improve your ability to write coherently and concisely. It will help you immensely in your career. Organization The paper should be no less than four pages, no more than five. Citations at the end don’t count towards the page total. Figures (e.g., tables and graphs) do not count toward the page total. We don’t have room to include sections that often appear in research papers such as an abstract or a literature review. I would suggest a brief introduction, the body of the paper, and a brief conclusion. The body can have subsections, but this is not necessary. More importantly, this is where it becomes obvious you have done some iterations of proofing and editing. Papers that have not be subjected to this process are clearly disorganized and do now flow well. Content This is largely up to you. Excellent papers can have very different styles. Below are some high level comments. • The topic you researched should be clearly described early in the paper. • The paper should demonstrate the knowledge gained from your research. The depth of discussion should reveal that the author has researched the topic thoroughly. • Concepts from class should be applied where appropriate. If there is an obvious place to do this, great. However, don’t feel this is necessary. • Integrate their own insights. 2