L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of FirmsReturn

Catastrophic risks have in recent years brought with them big question marks overwhat attitude insurers should take towards them. This is particularly a problem insituations of recurrent hurricane-type catastrophes on the east coast of the Caribbeanand the United States, where it is already perfectly legitimate to address the fulfilmentof the contingency condition, which is an essential condition for the recognition ofan insurance claim. The solution, beyond the limits and exclusions imposed onclaims, appears to be to involve markets outside the insurance industry and transferrisk, for example, through catastrophe.

This paper deals with different kinds of costing formulas, regarding the price-setting decisions, resp. transfer-pricing decisions and business value maximization. Results of theoretical research show that it is always suitable to separate fixed and variable costs, nevertheless retrograde costing formula is more convenient in competitive environment, whereas dynamic costing is more suitable in the case of monopoly. While reflecting the above, it is also necessary to take into account the multi-layer nature of product, including servicing and extraordinary requirements of customer (e.g. by using activity-based costing). The main determinant of success is not only the type of costing formula used, but also quality and detail of the data in information system.