Valuation
Like any other company, an insurer has to show that its assets exceeds its liabilities to be solvent. In the insurance industry, however, assets and liabilities are not known entities. They depend on how many policies result in claims, inflation from now until the claim, investment returns during that period, and so on.
So the valuation of an insurer involves a set of projections, looking at what is expected to happen, and thus coming up with the best estimate for assets and liabilities, and therefore for the company's level of solvency.
Read more about this topic: Stochastic Modelling (insurance)