Insurance Books

The Auther explain the underlining historical events ( e.g. the ups and down of dollar Yen exchange rate) that lead to the boom and bust of the Asian economics. He also account for the 1994 Mexico financial crisis in similar manner. Useful for understanding events shaping the world's economics.

This book is well written which makes it a usefull tool to improve my English.The content is OK, but nothing worth it to rave about.(Perhaps,the author need to visit Continent of Asia little more often.)

This is a good book -- it tells what we already know. Too bad that the author could not predict any of these events -- but then of course hindsight is always 20/20! I do not think this book helps one to do business in Asia. One major drawback - the author seems to have no understanding of Asian business and seems not to have sullied his conclusions by speaking with any Asians. Read this book for a glimpse of perfect hindsight -- but read also "New Asian Emperors: the Overseas Chinese their Strategies and Competitive Advantages" by George T. Haley for a more fair appraisal of the Asian situation and a terrific understanding of Asian business.

Not very good.

There are many marks and lines on the book.

very pleased. book was in good condition as noted on description and pleased with shipping time.

I received the textbook in a timely fashion, so I could use it for my class. It's not the best textbook I've used, but it was required, hence the 3 stars.

There are only four chapters on weather derivatives themselves and these seem, at a glance, to be mainly re-writes of material that is already available on the internet, e.g. one written by Enron, one by Southern Company Energy Marketing.

Nevertheless, the contributors are key players in the market and this book serves as a useful summary of the available literature. I would have liked to see some advanced material, including explanation of more sophisticated pricing models, but that is perhaps best left to a subsequent text.

The book is certainly not cheap, though it is not unreasonably priced - especially when compared to the amount of money companies are throwing away through failing to manage their weather risks...

Weather and energy derivatives constitute a 'hot' topic in the derivatives market with new articles, reviews and websites sprouting everywhere. So, this book may seem a timely publication on the topic, given the fact that there are very few publications available on this topic.

However, unless you know nothing about the subject, I do not recommend to buy this book: timeliness seems to be its only quality.

Most articles are descriptive of products and markets and contain little information of interest to risk managers / traders / insurance professionals working in the field. The article on options is a general article on Black Scholes with little or no relevance to energy or weather derivatives.

In brief, it looks as if this book were written for purely commercial purposes. Definitely not worth its high price.

Since my first review, a number of people have asked for more comments on this book. I have therefore written a more detailed review:

This book contains a series of articles covering developments in the areas of Insurance Derivatives, Securitisation and Weather Derivatives. The Weather Derivatives section comprises four articles written by key industry players. It serves as a useful introduction to the weather derivatives market for the newcomer.

The first article provides a broad introduction to weather derivative instruments, contrasting them with weather insurance products. It looks at the weather risk market in terms of the energy chain, from producers through to consumers. The article gives an overview of the most common type of weather derivative presently traded, those based on "degree days". Finally, valuation of weather derivatives is touched on.

The second article presents the current state of the weather derivatives market and summarises the types of deal that have been entered into to date.

The final two articles provide a more in-depth analysis of pricing degree day instruments and cover issues such as: · Establishing correlations between revenue streams and temperature variables; · Use of historical data to extrapolate valuations, including a brief look at the appropriate selection of data and `de-trending' issues; · Introduction to stochastic temperature modelling; · Using value at risk techniques in the context of weather derivatives.

Some of the articles in the book are freely available in the public domain, and this may deter potential purchasers interested in weather derivatives from buying the book. In addition, the book would benefit from some advanced articles covering the use of more sophisticated valuation techniques. As it stands, however, this book is a useful introduction for newcomers to this rapidly growing market, with well chosen articles that provide a good basic grounding.

I wanted a book which would explain buying and selling options in a thorough way for someone who knew very little about options. This is not the book.

The author seems to have the intent to throw in as many complex terms without every explaining the simple things. Never once in this book is a walk through through on how to buy a call, how to sell the option, or on how to exercise the underlying contract. The same goes for simple puts.

I wanted something that took me from 0 to 60 in a couple of hours, to explain options in plain english. This book goes from 20 to 120 then back to 40 and up to 80 then back to 10, very poorly constructed and organized.

(My review for Dummies: This book is difficult to follow, jumps around a lot, and rarely satisfies the curiousity at hand)

What this book lacks in detail, it makes in subject completeness.

There are dozens and dozens of great websites out there describing options and trading strategies in far better depth and completeness than this book. So, if you're looking for complex spreads or techniques, this book will not satisfy you.

However, online searches are so saturated in trading strategies that it's actually difficult to become aware of real world transactional details (like, "who are the market makers? how does assignment work?"). this book nicely wraps up those "loose ends" that are hardly ever mentioned on your favorite search engine.

If you work in the liability insurance industry, this book provides an interesting history of lessons (to put it mildly) that industry learned not too long ago.

This British author organized his account well. The introduction makes the reader care about this exclusive and centuries old world of wealth that went terribly wrong. The chapters on the history of Lloyds should intrigue fans of history, economics, business and the like. The reader has good reason to feel confidence almost pride about the human achievement Lloyd's has come to stand for.

Then Lloyd's players push the envelope with under the table practices a la Enron. Risks are transferred, reinsured, sent offshore, and so on until *cue Jaws music* Lloyd's develops cracks.

Then the asbestos liability debacle happens, which the author describes well. This ancient material, asbestos, suddenly began killing and injuring masses of people who turned to the Brits for help. Mass asbestos liability caught Lloyd's by surprise during a time of Enron-flavored vulnerabilities.

Then the environmental liability debacle happens. Suddenly companies were ordered to clean up America in the amount of billions. This too caught Lloyd's by surprise on its "lunch breaks" from dealing with the other problems.

Lloyd's somehow kept itself intact, though many of its individual financers were not so lucky. A weakness of the book is that it causes the reader to want a solution to the desperate failures of Lloyd's. Ultimately, Lloyd's solved its problems. The author provides some remakrs about this solution, but with less clarity and depth than the rest of the book. The author seems to believe that after describing the problems and consequences, his work is done. Although the problems that plagued Lloyd's and the consequences are the real story, I was hungry for an explanation of how Lloyd's has changed for the better and instilled confidence in the insurance markets.

Risky Business is a similar book on this topic. Risky Business did a better job of placing the reader into the luxury and pomp of being a Name, that is, an individual who actually provides the money to back Lloyd's insurance products. Risky Business also provided a better moment by moment account of some of the major legal battles involving Lloyd's, impoverished Names and others. This book was better organized than Risky Business. Start with this book, then read Risky Business.

I have not yet read the book, 5 years after it was published. It predicts the doom of Lloyd's of London, which still has not occurred. They've been able to sort out their problems.

There is an important misconception in the reviews and sinopsys on this website: Lloyd's is not an insurance company; it is an insurance market formed by syndicates providing insurance and reinsurance coverage. Some of these syndicates have been very profitable, others have not.

Excellent introduction to Lloyds, the incestuous relationship among the insiders, and how the insiders used their superior knowledge coupled with the myths surrounding historic Lloyds to dupe individuals into becomming Names. If you're in the business, this book has a lot of dirt about a lot of folks. A good read

This title is the kindest summation possible of my reaction to "Under Radar," a book whose editorial reviews made me look forward with anticipation to reading it. Usually I like black comedies and characters with quirks of character or psychological interest. And, as many reviewers included almost the entire plot line of this novel in their remarks on it, I assumed that the charm and fascination must lie in its development. Not so. Instead, almost half-way into my reading I found only what could easily have passed as the script for a film, and a skimpy one at that. This unattractive spareness of fictional detail dissipates slowly as the novel advances, but never completely disappears. How can it, when the story, covering decades of a man's life, is dispatched in 212 small pages with wide margins and 12-point type?
Yes, mysteries develop and profundities are hinted, but all are left hanging as the reader turns the final page. And that none too soon, for this reader. Promising script, perhaps, for the Coen brothers.

Why read a book that tells you everything you already know? The more enigmatic on first reading, the likelier that subsequent readings will yield deeper meaning. I have my opinion of this book, but if the book has a point, it means to leave my opinion open to interpretation.

Tolkin tried to interweave a novel of criminal psychology and religious allegory, an ambitious enterprise. But the writing stumbles in both areas. The main character's (Tom) development into an enlightened (if chastened) man isn't credible, yet it's the main thing the author wants us to accept. Intervening chapters were apparently designed to provide an odyssey for Tom; though they're written in a fluid manner, they don't provide adequate or meaningful support for the main idea. It looks like Tolkin read up on the Kaballah and/or other mystical texts, and then tried to stitch them into a crime novel. The first part is written with the slickness of a screenplay outline; the second part goes fuzzy with spirituality. Neither part works. I'm puzzled by the mainly positive reviews this book has received and am interested to know what actual readers think.

Pension books are like Y2k Survival Guides. Once the year in question is over, what good is the book? That's what you run into with Pension books nowadays, material that has to be updated on a yearly basis or it's woefully out of date.

As I mentioned in a previous review of the 1996/97 version of this book, it was lacking in the compliance and regulatory sections. These sections are KEY to understanding pension plans.

As a former student of Dearborn's security texts, I can tell you they are THE source for any of the securities exams - absolute top notch. But when it comes to pensions, they need to incorporate more detail and focus separately on defined contribution and defined benefit plans.

In a field as "ever-changing" as retirement plan management and pension administration, it takes a special set of resources to keep up with these changes. Dearborn is excellent, simply top notch with their securities and insurance publications; but with defined contribution and pension plans, unfortunately, their data is lacking, too basic, and out of date. Emphasis should be placed on compliance testing as well as the reform bills passed through congress affecting pension plans. I just don't feel this is covered here.

If you want the creme de la creme of pension books, get Aspen Publishing's pension answer book series.

It is interesting to see a physicians perspective on modern medicine, treatment of VA patients and the pure competition in the fields, specifically psychiatric. A few "sacred cows" are unmasked. Leaves the reader wondering if doctors in any field ever agree on anything. Of course, there is always research, and then research to debunk the previous research.

"Blood Money" makes several excellent points, and exposes the gross inadequacies that exist in the present medical community. Though written with the insight only a physician could bring to the subject of medicine; the author spends an inordinate amount of time describing the mistreatment his wealthy Indian family has received at the hands of various institutions and governments. These stories add nothing to his argument that the medical delivery system is broken and in dire need of repair. The book attempts to offer a solution to the current problems that medicine faces, but fails miserably. "Blood Money" is hard to follow and never really gets to the point. He never answers the question: How does the patient protect himself or herself from bad medicine, and how do we correct the current problems?

I purchased Coding & Reimbursement: The Complete Picture Within Health Care by Denise Stace-Naughton. The book seems very helpful. I had the book for about 4 weeks before I started to read it. You can tell it is a brand new book. Unfortunately, the book is missing pages 17 - 48. They are torn out they are just missing. I called AHA Press they won't take it back. I paid $45.00 for this book. I don't know what else to do. Of course, I through out my receipt once I received the book. Help. Lynn Mezzanotte: lmariamezz444@sbcglobal.net

This is a good book for a student to begin to feel comfortable with these systems

Frankly, you can get better study guides off the ASIS websites or via networking for free. As the previous reviewer points out, too many key areas and concepts are inadequately covered.

That said, it's useful to carry on trips, read through on planes ect., instead of wrassling with a laptop. Helpful, but not a "one stop shop".

I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed in the book. I also purchased the Amazon recommended book to go with this, the CPP examination. I went with the CPP book due to the fact that ASIS CPP publications start at $500 and go to $1,000 for books to help with the exam.

In reviewing sample tests for the exam, there are questions in highly important areas of key domains and information that are not covered at all in the CPP book. I was looking for an all-in-one guide with the quality of a Shon Harris CISSP publication, but this book is very lacking in that regard. If you are the type of person that would rate Shon Harris books an "A", this book would be a "C".