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IAI Actuarial Core Principles · Actuarial Statistics · Purpose and function of data analysis

A health insurer tracks 1,000 policyholders every month for 24 months, recording each person's monthly claim cost. Which description fits this dataset?

This is panel or longitudinal data: many individuals, here 1,000, each observed repeatedly over 24 months. Cross-sectional data uses a single time point and a pure time series follows one unit, so neither describes the structure.

  1. ACross-sectional data with 1,000 observations
  2. BTime series data for a single individual
  3. CPanel (longitudinal) data with 1,000 individuals observed at 24 time pointsCorrect
  4. DPurely categorical data because individuals are labelled
  5. Censored data because the study ends at 24 months

Explanation

Observing many individuals repeatedly over time gives panel or longitudinal data, here 1,000 units across 24 periods (24,000 records). Cross-sectional data would have one time point, and a single time series would follow one unit. Censoring is not implied by the description.

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