This book is written from the point of view of mathematical statistics and attacks the problem how to model the probability distribution of the financial severity of a single claim. Two actuaries, C. C. Hewitt and G. S. Patrik, functioned as sparring partners for the authors and they were also responsible for part of the written text. As such this book represents a good blend of the pure statistical and practical aspects of the reality of loss phenomena. The authors advocate the philosophy that

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... a mathematical model for the empirical loss distribution, with parameters estimated from the data, provides a better tool for forecasting and pricing than the empirical distribution itself.