Programme Curriculum

This course is designed to give students a holistic/integrated view of risk and insurance management. Covered topics include the concept of risk, risk measurement, fundamentals of corporate risk management and the rationales of corporate risk management, risk management organisation and processes, concepts of compliance, insurance operations and some major tools of risk management. The course content will reflect the latest developments and industry practices in the discipline of risk and insurance management.

Insurance Economics brings together the economic analysis of decision making under risk, risk management and demand for insurance by individuals and corporations, objectives pursued and management tools used by insurance companies, and the regulation of insurance.

This course is intended to help individuals learn basic information concerning Insurance Markets, Property and Liability, and Life and Health Insurance. The first segment of the course provides the general theory of insurance markets. The second segment focus on Life and Health insurance. The third segment covers business property and liability risk management, related Mainland Insurance Law and the insurance market development in the Greater Bay Area. The on-going insurance practice and regulation topics in Hong Kong and China will also be discussed throughout the course.

The course covers modelling uncertainty, the methods and technologies used for decision analysis and making, risk management process and techniques. The course includes readings, practical examples and case studies. This course surveys the principles of probability theory and mathematical finance for solving a diverse set of risk management problems related to the valuation and measurement of operational and financial risk exposures of the firm. The material is presented in an interactive manner for students and encompasses real–world applications and examples to demonstrate risk management principles and practices. You will apply risk modelling principles and techniques in traditional and non–traditional risk management practice areas.

This course is designed to introduce methods for accounting and financial management in financial institutions and insurance companies from users’ and managers’ perspective in order to assess the “economic reality” of firms’ financial status, operational results, accounting management and equity value. Various accounting standards and financial concepts will be used to value and forecast cash flows under different business scenarios. Case analysis will be used extensively.

This course aims to provide students with knowledge in business, legal, economic and financial principles related to reinsurance arrangements and in the practice of analysing reinsurance portfolios. Contents include: reinsurance needs, nature and functions of reinsurance, methods and types of reinsurance arrangements, analysis of reinsurance portfolio, design of reinsurance programs, reinsurance markets, reinsurance pricing, legal aspects of reinsurance, alternative risk transfer (ART) and insurance-linked securities (ILS).

This course aims to provide students with basic knowledge in life, health, and pension insurance both in commercial and social aspects. Topics include: life insurance needs analysis, economics of life and health insurance, actuarial view of life and health insurance, nature of life, health, and pension insurance, types of life insurance policies, policy and ownership analysis, life and health insurance contract analysis, organisation of commercial and social insurance framework, laws and regulations of life, health, and pension insurance, Hong Kong MPF and Health care system, etc. The on-going insurance practice, insurance technology, global insurance market and regulation topics in life and health insurance will also be discussed throughout the course.

The course introduces students to the various concepts associated with financial planning and financial services. The course aims to provide practical knowledge that is necessary for financial decision making in everyday life. Topics include basic concepts of personal financial planning, investment planning, estate planning, life insurance strategies, saving for retirement, and tax issues. The course also covers the financial planning strategy that suits the risk and return profile of investors.

This course is intended to help individuals learn basic information concerning Property and Casualty Insurance. The first segment of the course covers the fundamentals of risk management and insurance. The second segment focus on personal property and casualty insurance issues, such as automobile insurance, homeowners insurance and workers’ compensation and employee injuries. The final segment covers business property and liability risk management.

This course does not presume any legal knowledge on the part of the students. Students will be given a general survey of the insurance market in the 21st Century and a brief historical development of insurance regulations in Hong Kong and China. They will then be taught the main features of insurance contracts, the legal duties of the insurers, the insured and the intermediaries. Clauses in the special types of insurance policies will be analysed in order to find out their main characteristics. Relevant Hong Kong cases will be discussed in class.

The field of risk management has undergone a dramatic change in the last 30 years and the speed of change is accelerating. Credit risk, market risk, asset and liability management and performance measurement have historically been thought of as separate disciplines, but recent developments in financial theory and computer science now allow these views of risk to be analyzed on a fully integrated basis. The course presents the fundamentals of corporate financial risk management and approaches the topic of risk from both academic and senior practitioner perspectives. The objective is a realistic and conceptually motivated overview of risk management for major global companies. The strategic approach to risk management requires an understanding of insurance and alternative risk financing, as well as financial, insurance and commodity derivatives.

Risk management and insurance are not feasible without data and data analytics. As emerging technologies move from the fringe to the mainstream, they have revolutionized how the insurers obtain, process and analyse data, and become critically important for decision making and business operations in the insurance industry. Big data and technology are central to the future of the insurance industry. This course covers major topics of the concepts and evolution of big data analytics, the analysis techniques for big data, and a series of in-depth case studies of the applications of big data analytics in the major operations of the insurance industry.

This course is a practical elective course for the Risk and Insurance Management Programme. It covers special topics in risk management and insurance, which are deemed important but not currently addressed in the regular courses of the Risk and Insurance Management programme. Relevant topics will be selected by lecturers. Currently, possible topics may cover areas of social security and insurance reform, corporate risk management, capital market crisis, insurance company management and practices, and regulatory environment of risk management, Chinese insurance market development.

The course focuses on the main types of financial derivatives, including futures, swaps and options and their use for hedging financial risks. There will be an extensive analysis of the most widely used option pricing models, including the Black-Scholes-Merton model, the binomial tree model, and other numerical procedures for pricing financial derivatives. The topics addressed also include the key concepts and important features of various derivatives securities, the trading mechanisms, and the concepts of volatility and volatility trading.

This course focuses on the availability and use of venture capital and private equity by small- and medium-sized and growing companies. The course is recommended for students considering careers in the venture capital and private equity industries and merchant and investment banking, as well as those who anticipate careers as entrepreneurs. Topics include issues in the financing of entrepreneurial companies, business assessment and valuation, transaction and negotiation strategies, and exit strategies. This course will cover a range of industries and financing structures.