Exercise
An actuary has done an analysis of all policies that cover two cars. 70% of the policies are of type A for both cars, and 30% of the policies are of type B for both cars. The number of claims on different cars across all policies are mutually independent. The distributions of the number of claims on a car are given in the following table.
Number of Claims | Type A | Type B |
0 | 40% | 25% |
1 | 30% | 25% |
2 | 20% | 25% |
3 | 10% | 25% |
Calculate the probability that exactly one of the four policies has the same number of claims on both covered cars.
- 0.104
- 0.250
- 0.285
- 0.417
- 0.739
Solution: D
If a policy is of Type A, the probability that the two claims are equal is
(0.4)(0.4) + (0.3)(0.3) + (0.2)(0.2) + (0.1)(0.1) = 0.16 + 0.09 + 0.04 + 0.01 = 0.30.
If a policy is of Type B, the probability that the two claims are equal is 4(0.25)(0.25) = 0.25. Therefore, the probability that a randomly selected policy has equal claims is
0.70(0.30) + 0.30(0.25) = 0.285.
If four policies are selected, the desired probability is the probability that a binomial random variable with n = 4 and p = 0.285 is 1. This is
4(0.285)(1 – 0.285)3 = 0.417.