General insurance marketing: A review and future research agenda

The financial services sector is a huge and diverse industry comprising many different forms of organisations and product offerings. Yet, a review of past papers in the Journal of Financial Services Marketing (JFSM) reveals a heavy bias towards articles on banking, to the neglect of other equally important financial services categories. The purpose of this article is to address this imbalance and to call for more research to be conducted in a wider range of financial services categories. In particular, general insurance is singled out as a category worthy of further research. Looking to the past, this article reviews research published to-date on general insurance in the JFSM to establish a benchmark and explore theoretical contributions. Attention is then turned to the future to identify a research agenda for the general insurance sector going forward. Five important themes are identified: trust, transparency and simplification, technology, HNW, and Takaful.     

Mobile banking innovators and early adopters: How they differ from other online users?

The rapid pace of technological development has created opportunities for financial service providers to offer their services via multiple electronic channels. The mobile phone is one of the most promising but so far marginally adopted channel for using financial services by consumers. Earlier literature on innovation adoption argued that those among the first to adopt new innovations possess unique characteristics compared to the majority of consumers. This paper aims to study how mobile banking innovators and early adopters differ from other users of online banking services. An internet survey was conducted among customers of a large Scandinavian bank in Finland yielding 2,675 responses. Logistic regression was used to identify variables differentiating between users of mobile banking and other online banking services. Somewhat contradictory to earlier findings the results indicate that only age (p<0.0005) and gender (p=0.010) differentiate these two groups of customers, while education (p=0.957), income (p=0.624), occupation (p=0.596) and size of the household (p=0.151) were found to be insignificant in differentiating the groups. The results offer service providers better knowledge of the typical mobile banking user thus adding value to their marketing actions in the field of electronic banking.     

Towards a better understanding of mobile banking: the impact of customer experience on trust and commitment

In the current context of ubiquitous connectedness through portable mobile devices and services, it is important to comprehend more fully the nature of consumer/bank interactions and relationships. At the same time, firms in the service sector are trying to provide customers with impactful positive experiences. This article examines the impact of mobile banking experience on trust and commitment based on the customer experience dimensions defined by Schmitt and expanded to include the negative aspect of the affective dimension. A total of 396 panellists of a recognized Canadian research firm responded to a self-administered online questionnaire. Findings demonstrate that the cognitive and negative affective dimensions of mobile experience impact trust, whereas the positive affective/sensory dimension influences commitment. The behavioural and social dimensions do not have significant impacts. This study enriches the theoretical corpus of knowledge in customer experience, relationship marketing and m-banking literature, lending practical implications for mobile services managers. Financial institutions, for example, should offer sensory mobile applications designed to appeal to the eye or to the touch (positive affective/sensory dimension), provide tools and information intended to arouse user curiosity and provoke reflection (cognitive dimension), while avoiding negative experiences which can lead to damaging feelings/emotions such as disappointment and anger (negative affective dimension).     

Effect of inherent innovativeness and consumer readiness on attitudes to mobile banking

Despite the strong evidence that many consumers relish their experience with mobile banking, others indicate that some segments may not be comfortable with these emerging digitized platforms due to certain inherent personal traits. Drawing insights from the socio-psychology and innovation/SSTs adoption literature, this paper tested a structural model with inherent innovativeness as an antecedent variable, and consumers’ attitude to M-banking, as a mediator to their future usage intention. The moderating effect of consumer readiness on the hypothesized relationship between consumers’ attitudes and intention to use mobile banking was also examined. The model was tested on survey data from 720 respondents from the United Kingdom (UK). Findings show that inherent innovativeness significantly explains attitudes to mobile banking. There were, however, mixed outcomes concerning the effects of three dimensions of consumer readiness on the link between attitudes and intention to use mobile banking. The results show that only ability exerts a positive and a significant effect on the examined relationship. The effects of motivation and role clarity seemed insignificant. The findings from this paper can help retail bank managers improve their channel and promotional decisions in order to enhance the service experience of relevant segments.     

Online banking services: a meta-analytic review and assessment of the impact of antecedents and consequents on satisfaction

This paper provides a meta-analysis of the generalizations in the relationships between the antecedents and consequents of satisfaction with online banking services. In total, 118 observations were analysed, with a sample of 49,607 respondents in 39 published articles from studies indexed in ten databases (Jstor, Emerald, PsycINFO, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier Science Direct, Scopus, ProQuest, SciELO, Google Scholar and EBSCO). Specifically, for the data analysis, we used the correlation coefficient r (plus χ², f test, t test, z test and β values). The results showed that constructs related to uncertainty, as evoked by online devices, system performance, quality of device content and online banking device structures, are significant and positive antecedents of consumer satisfaction. We also found that satisfaction with online banking services promotes trust and loyalty. Finally, we also detected that the relationship between reliability, satisfaction and service quality is stronger among Western banking consumers.     

Impact of website characteristics on relationship quality: a comparison of banks financial cooperatives

This study seeks to investigate differences exhibited by bank customers and members of financial cooperatives respecting website characteristics (website design, convenience, information quality, ease of use and security/confidentiality) and their impact on online relationship quality (composed of trust, commitment and satisfaction). An online survey was conducted with 476 banking sector customers (banks and financial cooperatives), followed by a confirmatory factors analysis and multigroup analysis using EQS 6.2 software. Results evidence a significant difference in terms of website design and security/confidentiality. The impact of these variables on relationship quality proves significantly higher in the case of banks. This study submits that web strategies used by banks and financial cooperatives to develop online relationship quality may vary based on the type of organization.     

The impact of SEC investigations and accounting and auditing enforcement releases on firms’ cost of equity capital

I study the impact of an SEC investigation (as captured by accounting and auditing enforcement releases) on a firm’s cost of equity capital. AAERs are often used in accounting literature as a proxy for fraudulent financial reporting. Fraudulent financial reporting should lead to an increase in cost of equity capital as a firm’s future cash flows become less certain. Overall, this study provides evidence of changes in cost of equity capital for firms targeted by an SEC AAER on the date the investigation is first made public.     

Punitive Damages in Bad Faith Actions Against Insurers in the USA: The Impact of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Campbell v. State Farm</Emphasis>

This article provides an overview of the history and practice of punitive damages in the USA, including U.S. Supreme Court resistance to punitive damages beginning in the 1990s. The 2003 Campbell decision continued this doctrinal trend in an case of seemingly egregious insurer “bad faith.” Examining insurance bad faith cases after Campbell, it appears that the Court’s decision had a practical impact as well as a doctrinal impact. Since Campbell, insurers appear to have enjoyed greater judicial protection against punitive damages in bad faith cases, expanding a trend discernable after the Court’s 1996 BMW v. Gore decision. However, the 50 states have not modified their jury instructions on punitive damages since these decisions, seemingly ceding this area to the courts as a matter of federal constitutional review. The 2007 Williams v. Philip Morris decision continued the trend in a non-insurance case, as the court overturned a large punitive award against a tobacco company.     

Variables influencing the customer relationship management of banks

Banks are important role players to the economy of any country. However, to survive in a competitive business environment banks need to focus on building and maintaining client relationships and to identify how their employees influence these relationships. This study investigates the influence of variables, with regard to bank employees, on the customer relationship management (CRM) of banks. A literature study explains CRM, the banking industry and employees' involvement with banking clients. To assess the impact of the predetermined variables from literature on the CRM of banks, a number of hypotheses were constructed and tested empirically among a sample of banking clients. The findings reveal that the variables knowledgeability and attitude of bank employees have a statistically significant impact on the effectiveness of the CRM strategies of banks. Based on the findings of the empirical investigation, strategies are provided for banks to improve their employees' knowledgeability and attitude in order to ensure more effective CRM strategies.     

Minimal Hellinger martingale measures of order <Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis>

This paper proposes an extension of the minimal Hellinger martingale measure (MHM hereafter) concept to any order q≠1 and to the general semimartingale framework. This extension allows us to provide a unified formulation for many optimal martingale measures, including the minimal martingale measure of Föllmer and Schweizer (here q=2). Under some mild conditions of integrability and the absence of arbitrage, we show the existence of the MHM measure of order q and describe it explicitly in terms of pointwise equations in ? ^d . Applications to the maximization of expected power utility at stopping times are given. We prove that, for an agent to be indifferent with respect to the liquidation time of her assets (which is the market’s exit time, supposed to be a stopping time, not any general random time), she is forced to consider a habit formation utility function instead of the original utility, or equivalently she is forced to consider a time-separable preference with a stochastic discount factor.     

Using Google Scholar citations to rank accounting programs: a global perspective

We conduct an assessment on accounting program research performance based on Google Scholar citations for all articles from a set of 23 quality accounting journals during 1991–2010. Our work is a new approach in accounting by directly measuring the impact of the faculty research in accounting programs. We find that the top-5 accounting programs are the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and Harvard University. These top programs produce a large number of high impact articles. In addition, using the mean citations from all articles in a journal, we find that the Review of Accounting Studies (RAST) is a top-5 journal, replacing Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR).     

Effects of perceived cost,service quality,and customer satisfaction on health insurance service continuance

This paper aims to contribute to the universal discourse on financial services continuance behavior by examining the impact of service cost on customers’ service-quality perception and service continuance intention. It presents the results of an empirical study that has explored the impacts of service cost, service quality, and customer satisfaction on health insurance customers’ behavioral intention toward continuing or discontinuing with their service providers. Very few studies had examined the impact of service cost on service-quality perception. Our study attempts to fill that gap. A sample of 820 customers was surveyed, and 624 usable responses were analyzed with ANOVA, standard multiple regression, and logistic regression. Our findings indicate that, although highly satisfied health insurance customers will most likely retain their current service providers, customer dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to discontinuance. Our results also provide some operational implications for health insurance managers, with strategies for reducing attrition and improving customer retention.     

From <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance</Emphasis> to <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review</Emphasis>

The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review celebrates in 2016 its 40^th year of existence. Yes. But it must be recalled that about half of these 40 years occurred under a different name—The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance. For a long time, the fate of the journal was very closely linked to the development of “The Geneva Association”.     

Das Direktanspruchsstatut nach dem EuGH-Urteil „Odenbreit“

This Article deals with the impact of the ECJ’s decision in the case “Odenbreit” in which it allowed the injured person—in the concrete case injured in a car accident—to sue the liability insurer of the tortfeaser, both domiciled in another Member State, by means of the direct action, in the Member State of his or her own domicile. As a consequence, the court situated at the domicile of the injured person has to apply foreign law, which brings about some disadvantages to the injured person. The application of the lex fori, however, enjoys several advantages. The analysis shows to what extent the application of the lex fori would be possible de lege lata and de lege ferenda.     

Analysing corporate insolvency in the Gulf Cooperation Council using logistic regression and multidimensional scaling

In this paper, we examine corporate insolvency in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region between 2004 and 2011. Data comprises 28 financial ratio variables from 112 firms. We use Logit regression with best-subset selection criteria to investigate the predictive value of the ratios in the GCC context, particularly cash flow-based ratios. We also examine the main dimensions of the ratios, and the weights firms attach to them, using 3-way Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). We find that a parsimonious Logit model with the profitability ratio EBITTL, the leverage ratio TLTA and the cash flow ratios CFFOTA and CFFOCL can predict insolvency, ex-ante, with 84.8, 95.6 and 73.9 % overall, type I and II accuracy, respectively. From MDS, we uncover four financial-ratio dimensions: (i) ‘Non-strategic sales activities’, (ii) ‘Profitability and financial stability balance’, (iii) ‘Sales activities against capital conversion’; and (iv) ‘Market value against cash generation’. Insolvent firms appear very specific and attach most salience to the ‘Non-strategic sales activities’ dimension, unlike solvent firms which attach more salience to the other three dimensions. Therefore, the results imply that, to reduce susceptibility to insolvency in the GCC, managers should focus less on non-strategic sales activities.     

The SMEs’ perspective of trust in a B2B relationship

Despite the diversity in its associated definition and related structures, the role of trust in underpinning long-term business relationships is well established. This article presents an instrument to assess trust from the perspective of Nigerian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) towards their banks, an area with limited research to date. Items borrowed from various scale sets presented in existing studies are combined to assess trust by encompassing both the dimensions of credibility and benevolence. Data were collected from 221 SMEs via a self-administered questionnaire completed either by the SME owner or senior manager with responsibility for relationship with their bank, providing 199 usable records. An Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to determine the underlying data structure, with subsequent deployment of Cronbach’s α as a post-hoc assessment of the internal reliability of the retained factors. The analysis presented suggests that the SMEs’ perspective of the trust they have in their banks primarily encompasses credibility, supported by only a marginal presence of benevolence. In absolute terms, these SMEs declare a strongly positive level of credibility-based trust towards their banks despite the financial crises that have plagued the Nigerian banking industry. The originality of this work lies in the investigation of a business-to-business relationship involving SMEs and banks from the perspective of the former in an under-researched emerging economy setting.     

Enhancement of value investing strategies based on financial statement variables: the German evidence

This paper examines the added-value of combining traditional valuation ratios with each other as well as with some financial statement variables in the German stock markets during the 2000–2015 period. The results show that combination pays off and, moreover, that the benefits of combination are greater in Germany than in most other developed stock markets. Particularly, we find strong evidence of the added-value of using Piotroski’s F-score as a supplementary selection criterion for value stocks as well as for low-accrual stocks. Our results show further that the F-score also boosts the efficacy of other valuation ratios besides the book-to-price ratio. In addition, the inclusion of F-score besides a relative value measure tends to increase the average market equity of portfolio firms. The decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performance shows clearly that the better performance of F-score-boosted portfolios is mostly attributable to their outperformance during bearish periods, even though on average, they also generate higher bull-period returns than the comparable value portfolios formed without F-score. The use of F-score as a supplementary criterion also increases the proportion of stocks that earn above-market-average returns during the subsequent holding period. For the first time in the financial literature, we also document a strong relationship between high F-score stocks and momentum stocks.     

Erklärung der privaten Krankenversicherungsnachfrage anhand ökonomischer und psychologischer Einflussfaktoren

To be able to plan measures insales planning successfully, informations are necessary about the expected trend of demand in the future. In this respecttheoretical funded andempirical relevant correlations between exogenous influencing factors and the process of demand must be systematically explored. Consequently for the private health insurance aglobal model was developed, which is the basis for presenting exemplarily an approach of explanation for the health cost insurance. Via this approach theshort-term fluctuations in the trend of demand, which were noticed in the past, can be traced satisfactorily. In this context besideseconomical alsopsychological influences like attitudes and expectations must be explicitly integrated in the approach of explanation. Naturally also the effects ofsociopolitical events, which are relevant to demand, were included in the analysis, especially as the process of demand for private health insurance is substantially marked by sociopolitical legislation.     

Grundfragen zu Anzeige-, Auskunfts- und Aufklärungsobliegenheiten nach dem VVG 2008

This article analyzes the disputed legal nature of the duty to notify and the duty to disclose information according to sections 30 et seq. of the German Insurance Contract Act (VVG). To the extent to which the aforementioned legal provisions impose such obligations on a third party, the author reaches the conclusion that they are to be regarded as true legal obligations, i.e. their breach may result in damage claims. As to the policyholder, however, the legal provisions must be qualified as statutory warranties (so-called Obliegenheiten) without sanctions. Therefore, in order to sanction a policyholder’s breach of his obligations, the contracting parties have to turn the statutory Obliegenheiten into contractual Obliegenheiten, which are then subject to section 28 VVG. In the second part of the article the author addresses the scope of application and the content of the Obliegenheit to instruct the policyholder according to section 28 subsection 4 VVG. This Obliegenheit is imposed on the insurer as a requirement for the sanction of a breach of the contractual duties to provide information and to disclose by the policyholder.     

Small-time ruin for a financial process modulated by a Harris recurrent Markov chain

We consider a nonstandard ruin problem where: (i) the increments of the process are heavy-tailed and Markov-dependent, modulated by a general Harris recurrent Markov chain; (ii) ruin occurs when a positive boundary is attained within a sufficiently small time. Our main result provides sharp asymptotics for the small-time probability of ruin, viz., P(sup? _{n≤δ u} S _n ≥u), where {S _n } denotes the discrete partial sums of the process and δ∈(0,1/μ), where μ is the mean drift. We apply our results to obtain risk estimates which quantify, e.g., repetitive operational risk losses or the extremal behavior for a GARCH(1,1) process.