Answers: A zillmer adjustment is pretty much now defunct. It used to be an adjustment to get net-premium reserves in actuarial calculation less prudent; however, since most nation now use gross premium reserves, it's moderately rare.
The aim of the adjustment be to make an allowance for the big up-front costs of selling an insurance contract. Without doing this, the cost of the high initial expenses AND setting up reserves make insurance a pretty unattractive prospect below the net-premium method.
There's a reasonable article at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zillmerisat...
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