The Projection Template is where all of the pieces come together to begin the pricing run.
Create a Projection Template
The next step is to create a Projection Template. From the Assumption Management module within our model, we will select Projection Templates.
Next, we will create a new Projection Template by clicking the orange Create New Projection Template button.
Enter details for the projection template to define the properties. The projection start date should be set to just before the date you intend to start issuing new business. For example, if you want to price business sold on 1/1/2020, then the projection start date should be set to 12/31/2019.
The projection period can be any length of time. This will determine how far out the projections of business are run once the pricing has solved for the correct pricing values. This does not change the results of the calculations done at each cell level, but does impact how far into the future results will be available for reporting purposes.
Once it has been created, click on the new projection template in the list to edit further.
Edit Projection Template
We will now walk through each of the sections of the projection template and set the inputs for this pricing run.
Projection Settings
The projections settings are located in the top left section of the projection template screen. Click on the Edit button just to the right of these settings to modify them.
We will need to supply a Scenario Table to run for the projection. Since we are pricing a Whole Life product that is not interest-sensitive in this guide, we will just run scenario 1 from a New York 7 scenario file.
Other settings here can be modified to meet your needs, but we will not go through each in detail for this guide. For more information, please see the Projections article. One that you may want to consider changing is the Number of Cores setting. If your pricing uses a much larger number of pricing cells than what we are running in this guide, then increasing this value may help your pricing run faster.
Click Save once you have entered all the details needed on this screen.
Add Portfolio and Product(s)
In the Included Portfolios section, click on the Add Portfolio button to add a portfolio and product set to the run. In the form that comes up, select the Pricing Portfolio.
Because we are running a liability-only pricing, the inputs related to Asset Scaling, and Investment can be ignored.
Also, the Sales Allocation of the Portfolio can be ignored because we are running a static set of model points through for pricing. The Sales Allocation is only necessary for Dynamic Sales projections. Save the Portfolio to add it to the projection.
Next, we will need to add the Product we are pricing to this portfolio. Click the Add Product button.
Now select the Whole Life product to begin adding it to the projection. We will also select the model point file we created earlier (if you already uploaded it), or click on the "Add new file..." link to upload it now. Select the appropriate Excel Sheet Name and also select the Output Grouping we created so results will be available for our pricing cohorts. Click Save when done.
Set Data Tables
The final step will be to assign the data tables that we will use for this pricing run. This is where all of the assumption data gets connected for all the table reads that exist in the model. The list of Data Tables that appears will be filtered to only include Table Structures that are being used by the components (Products and Portfolios) that you have selected for this run. So the list will not necessarily include a full list of all tables that exist within your model.
Click on the Edit icon in the top right of the Data Tables section to edit it. Then select the appropriate data table for each Table Structure, including any new and updated tables created for each.
Click the Save icon in the top right to save your selections.
Now we are ready to create an actual projection and run it, which will cover in the next article.