S 2015 question 11.i If I wrote different approaches (which are valid) would they still get credit? or only if I wrote the 4 that they wrote in the examiner's report?
also in part 6 - they assumed in the answer that a NCD exists already, if I assumed that this is new, were this be a mistake? question was very unclear.
The examiners have very little freedom these days to award discretionary marks for points that are not in the marking schedule. So I always say the first thing to do when tackling an exam question is to identify the Core Reading that's being tested. In this case, the question was clearly asking you to demonstrate your understanding of Chapter 16 Section 3. Only after discussing this material should you move on to discussing other things. Hmmm, tricky, but I think probably this would be a mistake. This is motor business, so it's extremely likely that most insurers will have a NCD already in place.
I tend to agree but part ii in that question states that "A no-claims discount factor has been included in the model as an explanatory variable. The chart below shows the model relativities for the no-claims discount factor." This could give the impression that the NCD factor wasn't there before, no? I hate it when the questions aren't clear enough and you lose poins for not guessing the correct interpretation.
Possibly it could give this impression yes, but even so I tend to think that if the insurer wasn't using an NCD, the explanatory variable would be "number of years claim-free", rather than "NCD factor". Also, the question asks specifically about the effect on "market premiums", not the "insurer's premiums", so again I'd be thinking that surely surely most of the market will have an NCD in place. We can argue the toss either way, and perhaps my view is clouded by hindsight. Alas, inevitably questions are occasionally ambiguous, you just have to read the information as carefully as you can.
I feel that this question could have multiple solutions and not just the one they gave, in your opinion only the one they gave in the marking schedule got credit? also, is the marking schedule is more comprehensive then the examiner's report? (April 2010 Q9)
The Examiners' Report is pretty much a "copy and paste" job of the Marking Schedule, with the examiners' comments thrown in. I can only repeat what I've said before Jonathans, which is that the examiners have very little freedom to depart from the marking schedule.
