At this point, you should have a model set up that includes the product you want to price and a pricing portfolio for aggregate results. The next step is to set the model inputs on the product and portfolio.
Plan Codes
By default, the Slope Library is designed in such a way that many of the inputs for a given product are driven by a Plan Code. The Plan Code itself is just a made-up string value that uniquely identifies a set of inputs for a specific product or subset of policies within a product. This makes it simpler to manage distinct sets of cohorts within your business that need to use different assumptions. By examining the Plan Code Table and other Input tables within your model, you can see some of the types of inputs that will typically vary by plan code.
Some of the common types of inputs that will vary by Plan Code include:
- Benefit Terms
- Premium Payment Terms/Patterns
- Commission Rates
- Premium Rates
- Lapse and Partial Withdrawal Rates
- Expenses
- Crediting Rates
However, if necessary, it is always possible to change the drivers of various inputs to include other factors, such as age, face amount bands, risk class, and any others you might want. This will be addressed in more detail in the next section on customizing your Product.
Product Inputs
We will begin with the product level inputs. To start, go to the Model Development Module, open the pricing model and select the Products section.
On the next screen, select the product you are working on (Whole Life in this guide). Once you are on the Product Detail screen, you can begin going through the Input variables on the product. If you are using a product directly from the Slope Library (as we are here), then the easiest way to identify input variables is to filter the Variable List using the 'Input' tag.
Next, we will go through each of the input variables and determine if changes are needed for your particular product design. This will also allow you to see all the places where product inputs are being read from tables.
For example, we can see that the Commission Rates on our Whole Life product are being read from a Table named Commission Rates, and that the Commission Rate ID is being read from the Plan Code Table. We can also see how the Commission Rate is being used by looking at the Relationship View for this variable and tracing through the dependencies.
For each of these inputs that read data from tables, we will create a new Data Table that contains the appropriate values and parameters for the product we are pricing. First, we will open the Input Table details by clicking on the link next to the Table Name in the Formula Editor.
Next, in the Table Details screen, we can open the Data Table editor by clicking on the 'View/Edit Data Tables' link next to the table name.
On the Data Table edit screen, we will create a new Data Table with our commission rates. We can either import this data from another source (such as an Excel file) if we have a file with it already. Or we can create a new empty data table and manually add the rates by clicking on the appropriate button at the top of the table list.
For our Whole Life product, we are going to assume the following commission schedule.
| Policy Year | Commission Rate |
| 1 | 80% |
| 2-5 | 10% |
| 6+ | 2% |
We will be creating a new empty table and manually editing it. Click on the plus icon to add a new table and give it a name. Once the editor loads, add some rows to the table using the button on the bottom right of the screen and enter the data for your product. Our table will look like this when we are done. Click on the 'Save Table' button to save the table.
We can repeat this process for any other data sources and inputs we want to load into SLOPE for the other inputs as well.
In the next section, we will cover how to make customizations to the product for situations where your products and data don't match the original Slope Library base products.