Selecting prospects for cross-selling financial products using multivariate credibility

Insurance policies or credit instruments are financial products that involve a long-term relationship between the customer and the company. For many companies a possible way to expand its business is to sell more products to preferred customers in its portfolio. Data on the customers' past behaviour is stored in the company's database and these data can be used to assess whether or not more products should be offered to a specific customer. In particular, data on past claiming history, for insurance products, or past information on defaulting, for banking products, can be useful for determining how the client is expected to behave in other financial products. This study implements a method for using historical information of each individual customer, and the portfolio as a whole, to select a target group of customers to whom it would be interesting to offer more products. This research can help to improve marketing to existing customers and to earn higher profits for the company. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.