IC-99 Asset Management
IC-99 Asset Management is a 30-credit optional paper open to both streams. It covers the half of insurance that customers never see: an insurer collects premiums today for claims paid years from now, and what happens to that money in between decides whether the business survives.
Why insurers are investors
An insurer is, in balance-sheet terms, an investment institution with a liability problem. The liabilities are uncertain in both timing and amount, and the assets have to be chosen to meet them. That constraint — not the pursuit of return — is what makes insurance investment its own discipline.
IC-99 is about how that is done, and about the rules that limit it.
What the paper deals with
- Asset classes — what insurers invest in and the risk and return characteristics of each.
- Asset-liability management — matching investments to the obligations they must fund.
- The regulatory investment framework — the limits an insurer operates within and why they exist.
- Portfolio construction — diversification, duration and liquidity.
- Risk in an investment portfolio — market, credit, liquidity and interest-rate risk.
- Performance measurement — judging whether an investment strategy worked.
- Governance — who decides, and who reviews.
Confirm the chapter list against your edition.
The topics that repay study
Asset-liability matching is the spine of the paper. If you understand why a long-tail liability demands a different asset profile from a short-tail one, a large share of the paper follows.
Learn the regulatory limits as limits, not trivia. Questions test whether you understand the purpose of a restriction, not only its number.
Distinguish the risk types cleanly. Candidates lose marks by blurring credit risk into market risk.
Understand duration. It appears throughout and is worth being genuinely comfortable with rather than merely familiar.
How to prepare
IC-99 pairs naturally with IC-26 Life Insurance Finance and IC-46 General Insurance Accounts — the three overlap enough that studying them in sequence saves real time.
Certena serves 166 verified IC-99 questions. Because much of this paper is conceptual rather than numerical, use the explanations actively: if you can restate why an answer is right without looking, you know it.