Two-dimensional forward and backward transition rates

Abstract

Forward transition rates were originally introduced with the aim to evaluate life insurance liabilities market-consistently. While this idea turned out to have its limitations, recent literature repurposes forward transition rates as a tool for avoiding Markov assumptions in the calculation of life insurance reserves. While life insurance reserves are some form of conditional first-order moments, the calculation of conditional second-order moments needs an extension of the forward transition rate concept from one dimension to two dimensions. Two-dimensional forward transition rates are also needed for the calculation of path-dependent life insurance cash-flows as they occur upon contract modifications. Forward transition rates are designed for doing prospective calculations, and by a time-symmetric definition of so-called backward transition rates one can do retrospective calculations.