AlgoPolis Glossary
Technical terms in insurance, reinsurance, cyber, AI and special risks. Bilingual academic definitions FR / EN.
Cyber
195 termsAccidental cyber
Cyber event caused by unintentional software or hardware failure, as opposed to malicious cyber resulting from a deliberate attack.
Accumulation and aggregation
A concentration of correlated exposures liable to produce simultaneous losses from a single event.
Active Directory compromise
Takeover of the directory that manages identities and rights across a corporate network; it gives the attacker the keys to the entire information system and makes rebuilding long and uncertain.
Advanced persistent threat (APT)
A sophisticated attacker, often state-sponsored, conducting targeted, discreet and long-lasting intrusions for espionage or sabotage.
Air gap
Physical separation of a system or backup from any connected network, putting it out of reach of remote attack; strong protection, but one that can be bypassed through removable media or poorly controlled maintenance.
ALPHV (BlackCat)
A ransomware-as-a-service operation that emerged in late 2021, disrupted by the FBI in December 2023, which vanished in March 2024 with the Change Healthcare ransom in an exit scam.
Insurance
117 termsAdditional insured
A third party, client, principal or lessor, added to another's policy to benefit from its liability cover, a routine practice in construction and service contracts that shifts risk toward the contractor's insurer.
Affirmative cyber
Cyber cover explicitly provided for and priced in a policy, as opposed to silent cyber.
Aggregate
Total maximum amount the insurer commits to pay for all losses of a given category over the policy period, regardless of the number of events that occur.
Aggregate limit
The maximum amount the insurer will pay for all claims in a period, across all events combined.
Agreed value
Arrangement under which insurer and policyholder fix at inception the amount payable in the event of a total loss, with no fresh valuation at the time of the claim.
Assistance cover
Cover that provides help in kind, breakdown service, repatriation, accommodation, home help, rather than a cash indemnity, delivered by specialist companies available around the clock.
Reinsurance
142 termsAccess to records clause
A clause granting the reinsurer the right to inspect the cedant's records relating to the treaty.
Adjustment premium
The premium top-up computed at period end when the actual base exceeds the one used for the deposit.
Aggregate excess of loss
A treaty that accumulates qualifying losses over the year and responds only above an annual threshold.
Annual aggregate deductible
The cumulative amount of losses a cedant absorbs over the year before an aggregate cover starts to pay.
Attachment point
The loss threshold above which a reinsurance layer begins to respond, also called the layer's retention or priority.
Attribution science
Discipline quantifying the extent to which climate change increased the probability or intensity of a given extreme event.
Actuarial science
155 termsA priori loss ratio
Loss ratio predicted before observing claims, derived from pricing or market analysis, used as the anchor in the Bornhuetter-Ferguson method.
Acquisition costs
Variable costs directly linked to selling a policy: intermediary commissions, solicitation expenses and variable underwriting costs.
Actuarial fairness
The principle that a policyholder's premium should reflect the risk they actually represent, without penalizing them beyond their own exposure.
Actuarial non-stationarity
The phenomenon whereby the historical loss distribution ceases to be representative of future losses because the underlying environment is shifting.
Adverse selection
The sorting by which insureds who know themselves riskiest buy more, degrading a pool the insurer cannot tell apart.
Aggregation of capital requirements
The operation combining capital needs for several risks into a single figure, returning less than their sum as soon as the risks are not perfectly dependent.
AI
100 termsAdversarial examples
Inputs specially crafted to fool a machine-learning model into producing an incorrect output, while being indistinguishable from normal inputs to a human.
Aerial and satellite imagery in underwriting
Using images taken from aircraft, drones or satellites, analyzed by models, to assess a property's condition and surroundings without a visit, roof, vegetation, pool, and to estimate damage after a catastrophe.
Agency theory
Theoretical framework analyzing conflicts of interest between a principal and their agent, and the resulting economic costs when their objectives diverge.
Agentic AI
An AI system able to plan and execute autonomous sequences of actions to achieve a goal, beyond mere generation.
AI incident databases
Public records of harms and near misses caused by AI systems, which form the first source of loss data for a risk with no actuarial history.
AI model supply chain
The set of third-party models, datasets and libraries incorporated into an AI system, most often adopted without verification.
Law & regulation
201 terms1954 Hague Convention (cultural property in armed conflict)
The treaty requiring states to respect and safeguard cultural property in armed conflict, not to target it and to prevent its looting, including in occupied territory.
1970 UNESCO Convention (illicit trafficking of cultural property)
The international convention that commits states to preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property, whose 1970 date serves as a due diligence benchmark for the art market.
1995 UNIDROIT Convention (stolen or illegally exported cultural objects)
The private law convention that requires the possessor of a stolen cultural object to return it, even in good faith, granting fair compensation if it proves due diligence at acquisition.
72-hour prior complaint requirement (France, LOPMI)
A French rule that makes an insurer's indemnity for losses caused by a cyberattack conditional on filing a criminal complaint within 72 hours, and thereby frames the insurability of ransoms.
Act of state doctrine
A US rule under which courts do not rule on the validity of a foreign state's public act within its own territory, which often closes the path to recovery after an expropriation.
Actuarial function
Key function tasked with coordinating the calculation of technical provisions, assessing their reliability, and issuing a written opinion on underwriting policy and on the adequacy of reinsurance.
Finance
100 termsAIG rescue (2008)
The Federal Reserve's emergency loan to AIG in September 2008, made necessary by collateral calls on its credit derivatives and returns under its securities lending program.
Alternative Risk Transfer (ART)
A set of techniques transferring risk outside the traditional insurance and reinsurance circuit.
Asset-intensive reinsurance
Reinsurance of annuity or savings portfolios in which the reinsurer takes on, along with the biometric risk, the management and risk of the backing assets, often in a jurisdiction with a lighter prudential regime.
Asset-liability matching and duration
Management aimed at aligning the interest-rate sensitivity of an insurer's assets and liabilities to limit interest-rate risk.
Basis point value
Change in the value of a position, in currency terms, for a one basis point move in rates, a hedging measure that is directly additive unlike duration.
Brady bonds
Bonds created from 1989 onward to convert defaulted bank loans to developing countries into tradable securities with debt reduction, their principal backed by US Treasury securities.
Markets
107 termsACORD standards
Data exchange standards and standard forms developed since 1970 by a non-profit association, allowing insurers, brokers and reinsurers to exchange information without re-keying.
Admitted and non-admitted insurer
Fundamental distinction in the US market between an insurer licensed in a state, whose rates and forms are filed and whose policyholders are protected by a guaranty fund, and an unlicensed one.
Affinity insurance
Distribution of an insurance product by a non-insurance company to its own customer base, relying on the brand relationship rather than on an intermediary network.
African Risk Capacity (ARC)
Pan-African mutual offering states sovereign parametric insurance against drought and other disasters.
Age-tech and longevity science
Technologies and research aimed at extending healthy lifespan, liable to upend insurers' longevity assumptions.
Algorithmic follow syndicate
A capacity provider that follows by automatic rule the risks priced by a lead underwriter, separating the judgment function from the funding function.