Relative Hedging of Systematic Mortality Risk

A number of problematic issues have arisen in anticipation of the potential role of molecular tests for genetic predispositions to illness in risk assessment by insurance underwriters. We argue in this paper that the regrettable history and current risks of genetic discrimination warrant a presumption that genetic predisposition status should not be used in any nonmedical contexts, unless compelling evidence can demonstrate that serious harm will result to third-party interests without such use. We argue that insurers should not be able to initiate testing for genetic predisposition. We also argue that there are many reasons to doubt whether patients’ test results will result in such serious adverse selection as to cause substantial harm to insurance markets, except possibly at higher policy amounts in life or disability income insurance. We conclude that the burden of proof must be on insurers to demonstrate necessity of use in specific cases in which test availability shows high probability of imminent, serious harm to insurance markets.     

On the Lack of Participating Policy Usage by Stock Insurance Companies

Stock insurers can reduce or eliminate agency conflicts between policyholders and stockholders by issuing participating insurance. Despite this benefit, most stock companies don't offer participating contracts. This study explains why. We study an equilibrium with both stock and mutual insurers in which stockholders set premiums to provide a fair expected return on their investment, and with a policyholder who chooses the insurance contract that maximizes her expected utility. We demonstrate that stockholders cannot profitably offer fully participating contracts, but can profitably offer partially participating insurance. However, when the policyholder participation fraction is high, the fair‐return premium is so large that the policyholder always prefers fully participating insurance from the mutual company. Policies with lower levels of policyholder participation are optimal for policyholders with relatively high risk aversion, though such policies are usually prohibited by insurance legislation. Thus, the reason stock insurers rarely issue participating contracts isn't because the potential benefits are small or unimportant. Rather, profitability or regulatory constraints simply prevent stock insurers from exercising those benefits in equilibrium.     

Economies of scope in financial services: A DEA efficiency analysis of the US insurance industry

This paper investigates economies of scope in the US insurance industry over the period 1993–2006. We test the conglomeration hypothesis, which holds that firms can optimize by diversifying across businesses, versus the strategic focus hypothesis, which holds that firms optimize by focusing on core businesses. We analyze whether it is advantageous for insurers to offer both life-health and property-liability insurance or to specialize in one major industry segment. We estimate cost, revenue, and profit efficiency utilizing data envelopment analysis (DEA) and test for scope economies by regressing efficiency scores on control variables and an indicator for strategic focus. Property-liability insurers realize cost scope economies, but they are more than offset by revenue scope diseconomies. Life-health insurers realize both cost and revenue scope diseconomies. Hence, strategic focus is superior to conglomeration in the insurance industry.     

On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces

A sovereign debt crisis can have significant knock-on effects in the financial markets and put financial stability at risk. This paper focuses on the transmission of sovereign risk to insurance companies as some of the largest institutional investors in the sovereign bond market. We use a firm level panel dataset that covers large insurance companies, banks and non-financial firms from nine countries over the time period from 1 January 2008–1 May 2013. We find significant and robust transmission effects from sovereign risk to domestic insurers. The impact on insurers is not significantly different from that on banks but larger than for non-financial firms. We find that systemically important insurers are more closely linked to the domestic sovereign. Based on European data, we show that risks in sovereign bond portfolios are an important driver of insurer risk, which is not reflected in current insurance regulation (incl. Solvency II in Europe).     

Informations- und Beratungspflichten des Versicherers nach der VVG-Reform

The insurer’s duty to enable the customer to come to an appropriate decision, providing advice and information, is a central topic of the reform of the German insurance contract law. The obligations of intermediaries given by the Directive 2002/92/EC on insurance mediation are transferred to insurers and thereby enlarged in some aspects. The duty to give advice in §6 I 1 VVG depends on the objective circumstances of each individual case depending upon either the complexity of the insurance contract and problems in understanding its terms, or the characteristics and situation of the customer. Therewith, the regulation both refers to former jurisdiction and exceeds it by implementing a duty for the insurer to ask for the demands and the needs of the customer. Without reason in the special case the customer has to disclose his need for advice to obtain it. During the term of the contract the insurer is only obliged to give advice if he knows or — acting diligently — could know the needs of the policy-holder. On a European level further duties to inform and advise could help to achieve an effective internal insurance market.     

Cream Skimming: Innovations in Insurance Risk Classification and Adverse Selection

We demonstrate how innovations in insurance risk classification can lead to adverse selection, or cream skimming, against insurers that are slow to adopt such pricing innovations. Using a model in which insurers with insufficient pricing data cannot differentiate between low‐ and high‐risk policyholders and therefore charge both the same premium, we show how innovative insurers develop new risk classification data to identify overcharged low‐risk policyholders and attract them from rival insurers with reduced prices. Less innovative insurers thus insure a growing percentage of high‐risk customers, resulting in adverse selection attributable to their informational disadvantage. Next, we examine two cases in which “Big Data” innovations in risk classification led to concerns about cream skimming among U.S. auto insurers. First, we track the rapid adoption of credit‐based insurance scores as pricing variables in personal auto insurance markets. Second, we examine the growing popularity of usage‐based insurance programs like telematics, plans in which insurers use data on policyholders’ actual driving behavior to set prices that attract low‐risk customers. Issues associated with the execution of such pricing strategies are discussed. In both cases, we document how rival insurers quickly adopt successful innovations to reduce their exposure to adverse selection.     

The Risk Balls Game: Transforming Risk and Insurance Into Tangible Concepts

The Risk Balls game is used as a game in an introductory insurance course to demonstrate in a tangible way the notion of risk and its relationship to insurance. Through playing with the ``risk balls,' each one representing a different type of risk, the students experience feelings of anxiety about risk, and later, the sense of anxiety reduction when they transfer the risk balls to insurers. The game incorporates complex concepts of risk transfer and risk reduction via pooling and sharing of risk. The mathematical implications of the law of large numbers are physically felt in the classroom when the students experience the relief associated with transferring the risk balls to insurers. The discussion that ensues during the game includes aspects of the underwriting process; moral hazard; adverse selection; the role of agents, insurers, and regulators; and the nature of the insurance contract. The game of risk balls stimulates lively group discussions and provides hands-on experience with risks such as premature death risk or fire risk and the fears associated with them.     

Investigating the stationarity of insurance premiums: international evidence

This article explores whether there is support for the stationarity hypotheses of life and non-life insurance premiums during the period 1979–2007 for 40 heterogeneous countries. The stationarity of insurance premiums affects insurance companies’ prediction on their future inflow of premium income, which affects the liquidity of insurance companies and their investment plans and thus is relevant to the insurers’ operation. This article employs the advanced nonlinear panel unit-root test with a sequential panel selection method to classify the entire panel into two groups: stationary countries and non-stationary countries. We apply Monte Carlo simulations to derive empirical distributions of the test, which allows us to correct for the finite-sample bias and to consider the cross-country effects. We find relatively stationary life insurance premiums in countries from the following groups: high-income, Europe, and common law origin; relatively stationary non-life insurance premiums exist in the following groups: low-income, Middle East and Africa, and common law origin. Evidence herein shows that different classifications, including income levels, geographic regions, regionally or economically integrated blocs, and legal system, affect the stationarity of life and non-life insurance premiums.     

保险合同免责条款的理解与法律适用

保险合同的免责条款是保险人维持正常运营、防范自身风险所必须具备的条款,也是我国法律所允许的保险人的一项正当权利。同时,为了防止保险人滥用此项权利,我国法律对保险合同的免责条款的效力也做出了一定的限制,要求保险人对免责条款履行提示与明确说明的义务,同时也规定了免责条款法定无效的情形。如何准确理解免责条款的内涵与外延,准确适用法律,本文采用比较法的角度,联系我国保险实践与保险诉讼司法实践情况,作了有益的探索,提出在适用法律时,应做到保护保险合同双方当事人利益的平衡及维护投保人、被保险人、受益人利益及防范保险欺诈的平衡。     

Recent Developments in the Aviation Insurance Industry

The aviation industry has been hard hit in recent years. While there are numerous factors that have contributed to the industry's dilemma, rising and volatile insurance premiums—particularly after the events of 9/11—have posed a particular problem for many airline managers. Despite a general trend for accident rates involving commercial passenger airplanes to decrease as aviation technology has advanced over the years and airplanes have become safer, the aviation insurance market has been far from stable. This article provides an overview of how the aviation insurance industry works and how it has changed in recent years. We take a look at how the risk is spread between insurers, how insurers treat deliberate acts of violence, and lastly, how insurers price the risk. Our article shows that the aviation insurance market has undergone considerable changes in recent years and that it has adjusted to the post-9/11 aviation insurance realities being reasonably ready to handle events of an even more catastrophic magnitude.     

The Impact of Insurance Fraud Detection Systems

This article analyzes the impact of detection systems in an insurance fraud context. In a noncommitment Costly State Verification setting insurers can only detect fraudulent claims by performing costly audits, and policyholders are overcompensated by the optimal insurance contract. We show that auditing becomes more effective and overcompensation can be reduced, when insurers are able to condition their audits on the information provided by detection systems.     

On the Demand for Portfolio Insurance

While insurers manage underwriting risk with various methods including reinsurance, insurers increasingly manage asset risk with options, futures, and other derivatives. Previous research shows that buyers of portfolio insurance pay considerably for downside protection. We add to this literature by providing the first evidence on the cost of portfolio insurance, the payoff to portfolio insurance, and the relative demand for portfolio insurance across VIX levels. We find that the demand for portfolio insurance is relatively high at low levels of VIX, suggesting purchasers demand more downside protection when this protection is cheap on an absolute basis (but expensive on a relative basis). We also provide the first evidence on the hedging behavior of specific investor classes and show that the demand for portfolio insurance is driven by retail investors (individuals) who buy costly insurance from institutional investors. Results are consistent with other types of paradoxical insurance‐buying behavior.     

Institutional Ownership Stability and Risk Taking: Evidence From the Life–Health Insurance Industry

We investigate the relationship between risk taking of life–health (LH) insurers and stability of their institutional ownership within a simultaneous equation system model. Three main results are obtained. First, stable institutional ownership of is associated with lower total risk of LH insurers, supporting the prudent‐man law hypothesis. Second, when investors are sorted in terms of stringency of the prudent‐man restrictions, their negative effect on risk holds for all, except insurance companies, as owners of LH insurers. Third, large institutional owners do not raise the riskiness of the investee‐firms, as proposed by the large shareholder hypothesis. Regulatory implications are drawn.     

Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Impact of Natural Disasters and Regulation on U.S. Property Insurers’ Supply Decisions

In this article, we identify the main factors that drive insurers’ willingness to offer coverage in catastrophe‐prone property insurance lines. We compare insurers’ supply decisions in personal and commercial lines, with an emphasis on insurers’ responses in the aftermath of natural disasters. Our empirical results suggest important policy implications with regard to improving the availability of insurance against catastrophic threats. Concerning the impact of regulatory constraints, we present empirical evidence that certain regulatory responses may unintentionally impede insurers’ willingness to provide coverage against natural disasters.     

Adverse Selection and the Opaqueness of Insurers

While adverse selection problems between insureds and insurers are well known to insurance researchers, few explore adverse selection in the insurance industry from a capital markets perspective. This study examines adverse selection in the quoted prices of insurers' common stocks with a particular focus on the opacity of both asset portfolios and underwriting liabilities. We find that more opaque underwriting lines result in greater adverse selection costs for property-casualty (P-C) insurers. A similar effect is not apparent for life-health (L-H) insurers and we find no effect of asset opaqueness on adverse selection for either L-H or P-C insurers.     

Do Publicly Traded Property–Casualty Insurers Cater to the Stock Market?

This article examines the catering theory in the insurance industry. We investigate whether managers of publicly traded insurers pursue a growth strategy catering to the stock market's preference. Two hypotheses are tested in this study: (1) an insurer will devote more efforts to increasing premium growth when the stock market places greater values on growth, and (2) this catering effect will be more pronounced at firms where managers have greater incentives to maximize short‐term stock prices. We find evidence supporting both hypotheses. Our study discovers a new channel through which the stock market and executive compensation affect insurance companies’ business strategies and the insurance market. The implication of the interplay between insurers and the stock market is significant and deserves future research.     

Health insurers' operations in the face of health care reform: An analysis of the Supplemental Health Care Exhibit

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced significant changes to the health insurance marketplace in the United States. The act also imposed reporting requirements on insurers. The law has required insurers since 2010 to file yearly the Supplemental Health Care Exhibit (SHCE). The SHCE provides unique information on how health insurers operate. We analyze data in the SCHE to understand how insurers have complied with one of the major new regulations affecting health insurers' operations arising from the ACA—the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) Provision. This requires that insurers spend a minimum percentage of their premium revenue on medical claims, quality improvement expenses, and deductible fraud and abuse detection and recovery expenses. Our analysis of the 2010–2017 SHCE indicates that insurers' underwriting performance worsened in the early years of the ACA as they worked to increase MLRs to become ACA‐compliant. Analysis of the SHCE further reveals that insurers' profits from managing uninsured plans grew as the profitability of underwriting insured plans decreased. Future research on health insurer operations is warranted. The currently underutilized and data‐rich SHCE provides unique information that makes future research possible.     

农村小额人身保险的制度经济学分析

在我国,农村小额人身保险作为低收入农村居民的风险管理手段,其产生与发展是一定制度环境下的创造性变革。以新制度经济学理论为基础,立足于我国农村居民风险管理初始制度安排,指出农民风险管理制度供给不足是促使小额人身保险制度产生的基础,并对商业保险公司在农村小额人身保险制度变迁中的收益和成本进行分析,最后从政府行为选择、制度耦合等角度探讨建立可持续性的小额人身保险制度安排。     

The Capital Structure of Firms Subject to Price Regulation: Evidence from the Insurance Industry

Automobile and workers' compensation insurance are relatively homogeneous products sold under varying regulatory systems among the states. This paper investigates how price regulation affects the capital structure decisions of profit-maximizing insurers who sell insurance in both competitive and/or regulated markets. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that insurers subject to price regulation will choose to hold less capital. In addition, we hypothesize insurers subject to more stringent regulatory pricing constraints will choose even higher degrees of leverage because the benefits of holding additional amounts of capital are suppressed. We conduct empirical tests using cross-sectional data on insurers and find evidence consistent with both hypotheses. These findings have important implications for insurance price and solvency regulation. Stricter price regulation increases the default risk (i.e., reduces the financial quality) of insurance contracts purchased by individuals and firms.     

中国的“影子保险”:来自监管自然实验的证据

影子保险在金融稳定中扮演着重要角色,但现有文献较多关注影子银行,对影子保险关注不足。“影子保险”即保险公司通过再保险方式将保险业务转移给不受监管或者受监管较弱的关联企业的活动,这会推高其真实的杠杆水平,增加金融体系脆弱性。然而,由于影子保险的不透明性和缺少自然实验,现有研究仅基于有限数据或模型给出简单的特征事实或结构性估计,很少能从因果关系上清楚地识别影子保险活动及其机制。本文利用中国加强对中资保险公司(处理组)再保险关联交易监管的政策冲击这一自然实验,使用微观数据和双重差分方法,识别了中国金融体系中的影子保险活动。研究发现,相关监管有效降低了影子保险活动,这一效应对集团公司的影响尤为显著;在机制方面,相关监管通过影响中资保险公司资产负债表两端的结构性调整进而降低了其风险承担行为,提高了经营稳定性。本文方法对识别金融机构的监管套利和防范系统性金融风险具有一定参考意义。