保险会计准则比较研究

通过对比美国GAAP相关准则及国际会计准则IFRS4号《保险合同》,我国保险合同会计准则在规定条文方面缺少必要的严谨性,在保险特殊业务规范和信息披露方面也还需要做出进一步的具体规定.     

股东对公司财产具有保险利益吗?

保险利益是保险合同的客体,也是保险合同的要件之一。世界各国保险立法均规定无保险利益的保险合同无效。我国《保险法》亦有类似规定。然而,如何认定投保人是否具有保险利益,却有很大差别。     

股东以公司财产具有保险利益吗？

保险利益是保险合同的客体，也是保险合同的要件之一。世界各国保险立法均规定无保险利益的保险合同无效。我国《保险法》亦有类似规定。然而，如何认定投保人是否具有保险利益，却有很大差别。     

养老保险统筹账户收支缺口省际差异研究

2009年我国修订《保险法》增设“不可抗辩条款”是立法的进步,但因其未将投保欺诈等情形作为不可抗辩的除外适用规定,致使该类案件的司法处理无所适从。《保险法》司法解释（二）制定中对保险人受欺诈后撤销合同诉求之支持,先定后删,司法解释（三）征求意见稿又将其作为待定议题,使学界对保险合同撤销权与解除权竞合时的“排除说”与“选择说”之争更趋激烈。深入研究所得结论是：在投保欺诈背景下,保险人应依法享有保险合同撤销权。主要理由为：投保人自觉履行健康询问时的如实告知义务是最大诚信原则的内在要求;依赖保险人的事先防范无法阻止欺诈;公正的司法不应以任何理由和方式支持恶意欺诈行为;现行保险合同解除权制度对保险人的司法救济已形同虚设,不足以发挥惩恶扬善作用;“特别法优于一般法适用”规则在投保欺诈案件中缺乏适用前提;合同解除权与撤销权不该相互顶替取代;被投保欺诈的保险人撤销合同并不完全排除不可抗辩条款的适用;带病投保欺诈背离保险的本质属性,破坏保险的社会功能。     

董事高管责任保险与上市公司关联交易——基于我国上市公司经验数据的检验

董事高管责任保险(D&O保险)是一个市场化的外部治理机制。基于沪深证券交易所2003—2017年上市公司数据,本文实证检验了D&O保险对上市公司关联交易的影响。研究发现,D&O保险显著提升了关联交易总水平、关联销售金额和关联购买金额;根据控股产权性质分组研究发现,D&O保险对非国有控股公司关联交易的正向影响,比对国有控股公司更加显著;D&O保险、关联交易均与公司价值显著正相关,且关联交易发挥中介效应。研究表明,D&O保险通过监督效应提升关联交易,并促使其对公司价值发挥支持效应。研究加深了对D&O保险治理职能的理解,更新了对关联交易经济后果的惯性认知,对促进公司治理治理机制建设和完善现代企业制度具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

《合同法》在保险合同中的适用

保险合同是投保人与保险人约定保险权利、义务关系的协议.虽然,国家在制订《保险法》时专门设立"保险合同"一章,对保险合同的订立、履行等一系列问题进行调整规范,但保险合同作为平等主体之间订立的民事合同,还应该遵循合同法律制度的基本原则.我国《合同法》的颁布实施,为正确处理保险合同纠纷提供了进一步的法律依据.笔者希望通过《合同法》的基本理论和有关规定,结合保险实践,就《合同法》在保险合同中的适用问题,略述己见.     

论我国保险公司破产重整法律制度中的保单持有人权益保护

我国《企业破产法》和《保险法》等原则性规定保险公司可以进行破产重整,但一些重要的具体问题概无明确规则可言。保护保单持有人合法权益是保险公司破产重整的重要内容,应在法律制度中规定信息披露等有关要求,明确保单持有人的实体权益,优化程序设计,并发挥保险保障基金的专业优势。     

保险公司非寿险业务准备金会计处理与保险精算关系探讨

财政部2009年12月22日出台了《保险合同会计处理相关规定》，其中对保险合同准备金处理的基本要求、计提假设和期间、计量方法、信息披露做了详细规定。新规定《企业会计准则第25号——原保险合同》对非寿险原保险合同义务准备金的计提基础，有了根本性的变化，改变了过去会计处理依据保险精算，实行了保险人应当在资产负债表日计量保险合同准备金，     

关联关系的多维透视(下)

除了制度环境因素外,证券监管规则与会计准则两个维度的差异恐怕也是如今上市公司对关联关系描述混乱、披露不完整的推手之一。在关联关系认定的公司证券法律规则维度下,我国的监管框架包括四个层级:基本法律层面主要是《公司法》和《证券法》;行政法规层面的《股票发行与交易管理暂行条例》只要求披露关联人的名单和简况;部门规章层面的《上市公司信息披露管理办法》     

高管权力、董事高管责任保险与财务重述

本文在考察董事高管责任保险对财务重述产生影响的基础上,分析高管权力对这一关系的调节效应。研究显示,那些已经购买D&O保险的公司随后发生财务重述的概率更高,而高管权力的增大则推升了D&O保险诱发的财务重述的概率。这一结果表明,我国上市公司引进D&O保险有着较为强烈的机会主义动机,而高管权力的增大对于上市公司机会主义行为的实施起到了推波助澜的作用。     

The impact of directors’ and officers’ insurance on audit pricing: Evidence from UK companies

This paper examines the impact of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance on audit pricing in a large sample of UK companies. The existence of D&O insurance is expected to exert a dual impact on auditors’ pricing decisions. The presence of an additional source of funds to satisfy stakeholder claims in the event of audit client failure suggests that audit fees in insured companies should be lower. Alternatively, recent research has identified a positive link between the presence of D&O insurance and a number of characteristics traditionally associated with more expensive audits. The main objective of this study is to ascertain which of these influences pre-dominates. Analysing a sample of 753 UK listed companies in the early 1990s, when companies were obliged to disclose the presence of D&O insurance, this study shows that D&O insurance is associated with higher audit fees. It also confirms that insured companies are larger, more complex and present a greater audit risk (using a range of measures) than uninsured companies. Further analysis suggests that the impact of D&O insurance on audit fees may be influenced by company size, auditor size, and the extent of non-executive presence on the company's board.     

比较法视野中的欧洲保险合同法如实告知义务评析

为构建统一欧洲保险市场,保险合同法重述小组于2009年8月公布了《欧洲保险合同法基本原则》,该原则将成为未来欧洲统一保险合同法的蓝本。该原则在如实告知义务的履行方式上由传统的主动告知转变为被动告知,并根据主体违反如实告知义务时的主观状态与违反如实告知义务的时间规定了有区别的法律责任。其既体现了现代保险法如实告知义务制度的发展趋势,又考虑到了欧盟各成员国的承受能力。     

The cost of disclosure regulation: evidence from D&O insurance and nonmeritorious securities litigation

This study examines whether the required disclosure of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance premiums leads to nonmeritorious securities litigation. Our research setting uses a proprietary D&O insurance database that includes New York and non-New York firms, combined with the fact that New York firms must disclose D&O insurance premiums. We thus can exploit a natural experiment based on inter-state variation in disclosure regulation. Disclosed premiums may influence case selection in two ways. First, higher premiums signal higher limits, which plaintiffs’ lawyers likely believe enable higher settlements. Second, higher premiums indicate higher risk assessments from insurers and thus a higher likelihood that stock price drops signal misconduct rather than bad luck. We find that D&O insurance premiums for New York firms are associated with a higher dismissal rate. Offsetting this higher dismissal rate, plaintiffs’ lawyers can achieve higher settlements in the relatively few successful cases.     

Konvergenz des Versicherungsvertragsrechts in Europa?

Insurance law has been embedded in an international context ever since. This is true not only for marine insurance and reinsurance but also for manifold other branches of the insurance sector. Against this background, the European Single Market and the intended legal harmonisation and integration are particularly important for insurance contract law. The future development of insurance law should give special attention to the question if and to what extent there is a convergence in the respective member state insurance contract laws. At the outset, the comparative analysis shows that French and German insurance contract law is governed by a “risk bearing community model” (Gefahrengemeinschaftsmodell) and that English law can be characterized as an “individual contract model” (Individualvertragsmodell). Convergence is not only found in European directives but also in reforms and reform proposals in member state law.     

Inherent Virtue or Inevitable Evil: The Effects of Directors' and Officers' Insurance on Firm Value

Whether directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance improves firm value is a controversial issue. We perform a literature review about the effect of D&O insurance and find mixed results. The proponents of D&O insurance believe it enhances corporate monitoring and improves firm value, while the opponents of D&O insurance argue that it creates a moral hazard problem and diminishes firm value. Against this backdrop, we argue that the trade‐off between the monitoring and moral hazard effects depends on the information acquired by the outside directors. Using a sample of listed Canadian firms, we find that (1) a change in D&O insurance coverage has no net effect on a firm's subsequent value when we ignore the information acquired by outside directors, (2) an increase in D&O insurance coverage improves a firm's subsequent value when the outside directors are well informed, and (3) an increase in D&O insurance coverage reduces a firm's subsequent value when the outside directors are poorly informed. Our findings are robust to endogeneity checks and have important implications for the regulation of D&O insurance.     

保险治理与公司违规——董事高管责任保险的治理效应研究

公司治理机制被认为是影响公司违规的重要因素,然而董事高管责任保险作为一种重要的外部治理机制,是否会影响公司违规尚未得到充分研究。本文研究发现董事高管责任保险显著降低公司违规概率,符合监督效应假说。经工具变量法、Heckman两阶段模型和倾向得分匹配法稳健性检验,上述结论依然成立。影响机制分析表明,董事高管责任保险显著降低了公司违规倾向,显著增加了违规后被稽查的概率,并降低了上市公司的第一类代理成本。对董事高管责任保险的监督职能做进一步分析发现:(1)董事高管责任保险对上市公司经营违规和领导人违规的监督效应更为显著,但对信息披露违规的治理作用并不显著;(2)董事高管责任保险发挥的监督职能与股权属性和保险机构股东治理存在替代效应,与外部审计师治理和董事长CEO二职分离存在互补效应;(3)分组检验结果表明,董事高管责任保险对公司违规的监督效应在外部监管环境较差或者公司内部信息透明度较高的情况下更加显著。本文既提供了保险合约通过公司治理渠道影响公司违规的证据,同时也表明保险机构通过董事高管责任保险为中国资本市场提供了一种较为有效的公司外部治理机制。     

The impact of D&O insurance on excess corporate leverage

The governance effects of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance (D&O insurance), an important tool for risk diversification, are of strong concern in the capital market. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2009 to 2018, we examine the impact of D&O insurance on excess corporate leverage. We find that D&O insurance is negatively associated with excess corporate leverage and that this result is consistent with a series of robustness tests. Further analyses show that D&O insurance impedes excess corporate leverage mainly because of its effect on external monitoring. The effect is more pronounced for firms that are state-owned, have political connections and are located in provinces with low marketization than for other firms.     

Voluntary versus mandatory disclosure of liability insurance coverage limit

This article analyzes the disclosure of the liability insurance coverage limit and the impact of mandating disclosure of the coverage limit in a setting where voluntary disclosure of a firm’s cash flow information is subject to litigation risk and the firm has directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance. Disclosure of cash flow information is costly, but disclosure of the insurance coverage limit features no direct disclosure friction. We find that, when the litigation environment is weak, the usual unraveling argument applies, and the manager always voluntarily discloses the coverage limit in equilibrium. However, when the litigation environment is strong, either no coverage limit is disclosed or only sufficiently high coverage limits are disclosed in equilibrium. Further analysis shows that mandatory disclosure of the coverage limit increases the voluntary disclosure of cash flow information.     

Accounting and litigation risk: evidence from Directors’ and Officers’ insurance pricing

We study whether and how financial reporting concerns are priced by insurers that sell Directors’ and Officers’ (D&O) insurance to public firms. As D&O insurers typically assume the liabilities arising from shareholder litigation, the premiums they charge for D&O coverage reflect their assessment of a company’s litigation risk. Using a sample of public firms in the 2001–2004 Tillinghast D&O insurance surveys, we document that firms with lower earnings quality or prior accounting restatements pay higher premiums after controlling for other factors impacting litigation risk. In addition, insurers’ concerns about financial reporting are most evident for firms with restatements that are not revenue or expense related, are greater in the period following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and are greater for firms with financial reporting problems that linger. Our results are consistent with past restatements being viewed as evidence of chronic problems with a firm’s financial statements. By analyzing archival data, we can also quantify the effects of other determinants of D&O premiums (such as business risk, corporate governance, etc.) identified by Baker and Griffith (Univ Chic Law Rev 74(2):487–544, 2007a) through interviews regarding the D&O underwriting process.     

Corporate Insurance as a Necessary Form of Consultant–Investigator Contract

Existing literature argues that corporate insurance is purchased because the insurance company produces risk management information for publicly held corporations. In this article, we address a fundamental question as to why other financial intermediaries cannot perform the same information production function as the insurance company. We argue that when the risk manager of the firm performs multiple tasks and needs consulting and investigation services from an outside agent for efficient risk management, the optimal contract with the agent has to be in the form of an insurance contract. Other types of contracts, such as flat-fee contracts, cannot be optimal. Therefore, the insurance company is ideally suited to provides these services.