Anales del Instituto de Actuarios Españoles

Cybersecurity in small and medium-sized enterprises: vulnerabilities, threats and the development of cyber insurance

Ibtissame El Ferjani El Ferjani — 2025-09-16

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent an essential pillar of the global economic structure. However, their increasing digitalisation also exposes them to an growing number of cyberattacks. Despite their vulnerability, many of these companies do not prioritise cybersecurity due to a lack of resources, knowledge and a misperception of risk. A review of the literature published between 2019 and 2025 is conducted to understand the current state of research in the field of SME cybersecurity and the development of cyber insurance. The results indicate that SMEs lack adequate protection measures, with phishing, ransomware and supply chain attacks being the most frequent types of attacks. Furthermore, while cyber insurance offers an effective solution for business protection and mitigation, its adoption remains low due to a lack of awareness and economic barriers. It concludes that there is a need to develop accessible cybersecurity strategies and promote the adoption of cyber insurance adapted to the reality of SMEs.

An overview of funeral insurance in Spain

Josep Lledó Benito — 2025-09-16

Funeral insurance is an insurance product designed to cover the expenses and administrative procedures associated with a person’s death. Its main purpose is to relieve the insured person’s family of the financial and bureaucratic burdens arising from the funeral. Despite its widespread presence in the Spanish market—currently, more than 22 million people in Spain have coverage under this type of insurance—academic and scientific literature on funeral insurance remains surprisingly scarce. The aim of this study is to help fill this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of funeral insurance in Spain, based on the analysis of the sociodemographic profiles of policyholders, including their geographic distribution, income levels, and municipality sizes. The study examines a representative sample of 2.1 million policies, using the insured individuals’ postal codes of residence. The results reveal an uneven penetration across provinces, income groups, and habitat sizes, with lower rates in urban areas and among higher-income individuals. However, education level, more than income, is the variable with the greatest impact, showing a statistically significant interaction effect with income. The combination of a high level of education and high income reduces the likelihood of holding a funeral insurance policy.

SCR for premium and reserve risk in non-life insurance: limitations of the standard model and statistical alternatives

Jaime Guiance Lapido — 2025-09-16

This article presents an alternative statistical approach for calculating the Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) for premium and reserve risk in non-life insurance, complementing the standard methodology outlined in Solvency II. A statistic called ???? is proposed as an analysis tool, which is constructed without considering the diversification effects established by the standard formula To evaluate the usefulness of this alternative measure, Monte Carlo simulations and bootstrap techniques are applied under various probability distributions, including normal, uniform, log-normal, and Pareto. The analysis provides insights into how distributional assumptions and dependency structures influence the estimation of capital needs.The results highlight the potential of empirical quantile-based methods and internal modeling techniques, such as copulas, to enhance the understanding of risk aggregation in non-life portfolios. This study contributes to the actuarial literature by offering a complementary perspective on SCR estimation, supporting the development of tools that align with the diverse statistical characteristics of insurance portfolios.