The evolution of the Australian life insurance industry

The life insurance industry in Australia has traditionally been an important source of long term finance for both the public and private sector. However, very little historical analysis has been undertaken into an industry that constitutes a fundamental part of the economy's financial sector. The present climate of deregulation has initiated an irrevocable process of change within the industry. To comprehend the full implications of this change it is necessary to have an understanding of how the industry has evolved. This paper seeks to provide a background account of the growth of the life insurance industry in Australia highlighting the influences that have determined the structure of the industry.     

从保险消费观视角分析我国保险业的发展

对正确保险消费观的研究,不仅对我国保险消费者的消费行为具有重要的指导意义,而且对于完善我国保险市场,实现我国保险业的科学发展亦有十分重要的作用。正确保险消费观,是以风险转移为先,以购买经济保障为本,以互助共济为己任,以最大诚信为最高准则,以保险作为生存必须品,以可持续消费为目标的保险消费理念体系。保险保障形式是整个保障体系中最普遍、最经常、最基础和最重要的防灾救灾形式,它和社会保障共同处于整个防灾救灾体系的基础地位。     

深入贯彻落实科学发展观 防范风险 调整结构 促进保险业平稳健康发展

2008年是保险业很不寻常、很不平凡的一年,适应宏观经济形势变化,保险市场平稳较快发展;积极参与抗灾救灾,勇于承担社会责任;有效应对国际金融危机,保持保险市场稳定健康;不断拓展重点领域,服务经济社会发展全局;加强改善保险监管,不断提高监管的科学性和有效性;深入落实科学发展观,学习实践活动取得阶段性成果。纵观国际国内形势,实现2009年保险业又好又快发展的任务更加繁重,应正确把握外部环境的复杂性和严峻性,深刻认识保险业面临的困难和挑战;正确把握保险业处在新阶段的特征,使保险工作更加体现时代性和创造性;正确把握保险业发展的客观规律,增强在新形势下做好保险工作的能力。2009年的保险工作主要是:贯彻落实中央决策部署,更好地服务经济社会发展;坚持防风险、调结构、稳增长,促进行业平稳健康发展;坚持寓监管于服务之中,不断加强改进保险监管。     

金融危机启示:金融一体化监管趋势下的保险监管

任何一次危机的爆发都是风险释放的过程,研究危机更重要的是关注风险的积累过程。因此,分析危机前的风险积累过程,查找危机产生的原因,对防范和化解危机具有现实意义。本文通过对新近发生的美国次贷危机进而延伸到对10年前亚洲金融危机分析,以及全球金融一体化监管最新演进趋势的借鉴,论述我国保险监管组织架构的未来展望。     

澳门保险业概况与启示

澳门作为中国的一个特别行政区,一个微型的经济体,其保险活动也有期自身的特点。澳门保险业随经济的发展取得了快速的发展壮大,文章对澳门的保险从业人员和公司、监管体制与活动管制等情况做了全面介绍,进而指出对我国内地保险业的借鉴意义。     

数据挖掘技术在寿险业交叉销售中的应用

一般来说,保险公司获得新客户的成本比维持老客户的成本要高得多,因此保险公司开始更多地关注现有客户的发展,交叉销售正是挖掘现有客户的消费潜力的有效方法。本文以CRISP-DM(Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining)方法论为基础,探讨聚类分析和关联规则在寿险行业交叉销售中的应用,并结合某寿险公司的基础数据应用Clementine挖掘工具建立了交叉销售模型,帮助寿险公司有针对性地开展产品营销。     

对寿险行业结构调整及科学发展几个重大问题的思考

一年来,中国寿险业通过强化监管,推进结构调整,防范控制风险,增强可持续发展能力,实现了防风险、调结构、稳增长的目标。明年,寿险业要积极推进结构调整,把行业发展方向调整到长期储蓄和风险保障等保障类业务上来,确保保险行业不偏离正确的发展轨道,从源头上防范行业出现系统性风险。同时,寿险公司应坚持开拓创新的文化,大力推进渠道创新、产品创新、服务创新和管理创新。     

寿险合同复效之立法变动及规范方向

保险合同的中止和复效是因人寿保险合同的保险费交付债务的特殊性而在保险法上的特别规定。其规定在强行性上属于半强性规范,是为保护危险团体成员的利益而设,保险人不能通过格式条款或其他方式予以排除适用,或作出较该规范更不利于危险团体成员利益的规定。为此,需要在立法上增加关于认知和判断半强性规范的效力性规定,同时,也需明确复效的具体条件,以消除保险人在实际上通过协商同意来操控处于效力停止状态的保险合同的命运,使危险团体成员的利益得以落实。     

论保险的本质与保险业在金融行业中的角色定位

保险的本质是以资金解决了经济社会运行过程中要素的短缺与需求之间的矛盾,实现了风险的分散和财富的调剂,保障了经济社会生活的稳定运行。从保险的本质出发,明确保险业在金融行业中的角色定位,是保险业实现科学发展的前提。在当前经济金融环境不确定因素增加,行业发展尚不充分的情况下,保险业偏离保障发展方向可能带来潜在的风险。只有坚持保险保障的发展方向,立足于专业化经营,不断创新,进一步加强监管,才能真正实现保险事业又好又快的科学发展。     

社会学视野下保险业的科学发展

保险业的各类活动是根植在大量的社会结构和社会关系之中,保险的发展是与社会各种制度变迁的交织中实现的,目前针对于商业保险的研究还局限在纯经济学、金融学的分析范式中,本文跳出既有的研究视角,把保险看作是社会的一个组成部分,运用社会学理论体系研究我国商业保险的科学发展,讨论社会制度、社会变迁、文化与意识形态等社会因素与保险发展的相互作用,剖析保险业改革发展的现实条件和路径选择,提出了嵌入于整个社会发展的保险研究的框架思考。在社会学的视野下研究商业保险,有利于提升保险理论的系统性科学性,有利于实现保险与经济社会发展的良性互动。     

Organizational change in an Australian university: Responses to a research assessment exercise

The objective of this paper is to explore the way internal organizational control processes are changed in response to external demands. It does this by investigating the organizational change undertaken by an Australian university in anticipation of, and in response to, an externally imposed research assessment exercise (RAE), specifically focusing on the university's internal research-related performance management system (PMS) and its impact on academics. It adopts a case study method, using data from publicly available documents, interviews with senior management, and a survey administered to academics. The data is interpreted and analyzed using Broadbent and Laughlin's organizational change model. The findings reveal that RAE was anticipated with the appointment of new senior leadership, a new vision, restructure of faculties and departments, and changes to the research PMS. The changes to both the university's mission (significant and longlasting, second order change) and its internal systems (less significant, first order change) are evident. In the context of the global proliferation of PMSs in the higher education sector, this paper contributes to the literature on PMSs, indicating its relevance to universities. Its empirics provide useful insights for university managers and regulators and, more broadly, the paper contributes to our understanding of organizational change.     

Huntington's disease,critical illness insurance and life insurance

We describe briefly a model of Huntington's disease (HD), a highly penetrant, dominantly inherited, fatal neurological disorder. Although it is a single-gene disorder, mutations are variable in their effects, depending on the number of times that the CAG trinucleotide is repeated in a certain region of the HD gene. The model covers: (a) rates of onset, depending on CAG repeat length as well as age; (b) post-onset rates of mortality; and (c) the distribution of CAG repeat lengths in the population. Using these, we study the critical illness and life insurance markets. We calculate premiums based on genetic test results that disclose the CAG repeat length, or more simply on a family history of HD. These vary widely with age and policy term; some are exceptionally high, but in a large number of cases cover could be offered within normal underwriting limits. We then consider the possible costs of adverse selection, in terms of increased premiums, under various possible moratoria on the use of genetic information, including family history. These are uniformly very small, because of the rarity of HD, but do show that the costs would be much larger in relative terms if family history could not be used in underwriting. We point out some difficulties involved in applying a moratorium that recognises simply a dichotomy between ‘carriers’ and ‘non-carriers’ of any mutation in a gene when these mutations are, in fact, very variable in their effects. These complexities suggest that restrictions on the disclosure, rather than on the use, of genetic information, if it became established as a principle, could deprive insurers of information needed for risk management even if not used in underwriting.     

保险服务业产业内贸易及其影响因素的实证分析

本文对美国与其22个贸易伙伴国的保险服务业产业内贸易水平进行度量,并且使用Grubel-Lloyd IIT指数,建立2002年~2006年面板数据模型对保险服务业产业内贸易的影响因素进行经验分析。研究结果表明:市场开放度和跨国公司内部贸易流与保险服务业产业内贸易存在显著的正相关,市场规模差异与保险服务业产业内贸易存在显著的负相关。人均收入差异、市场不平衡度和对外直接投资均对保险服务业产业内贸易水平的影响不显著。     

Optimal life insurance with no-borrowing constraints: duality approach and example

We solve an optimal portfolio choice problem under a no-borrowing assumption. A duality approach is applied to study a family’s optimal consumption, optimal portfolio choice, and optimal life insurance purchase when the family receives labor income that may be terminated due to the wage earner’s premature death or retirement. We establish the existence of an optimal solution to the optimization problem theoretically by the duality approach and we provide an explicitly solved example with numerical illustration. Our results illustrate that the no-borrowing constraints do not always impact the family’s optimal decisions on consumption, portfolio choice, and life insurance. When the constraints are binding, there must exist a wealth depletion time (WDT) prior to the retirement date, and the constraints indeed reduce the optimal consumption and the life insurance purchase at the beginning of time. However, the optimal consumption under the constraints will become larger than that without the constraints at some time later than the WDT.     

Mortgages and bonds: The asset management practices of Australian life insurers to 1960

Recent studies of the experience of the British life insurance industry indicate that a period of transition, and the development of more diversified investment strategies, began in the interwar period. Australian life insurers lagged behind their British counterparts in the introduction of such strategies. This paper investigates why this was the case. It argues that in the Australian market there was both a lack of opportunity and incentive to broaden asset portfolios. However, this did not mean that asset management practices did not advance. Australian life offices became progressively more sophisticated in their approach to portfolio management during this period. Developments in the interwar period provided a grounding for post-war expansion into the equity market.     

金融危机下中国保险业的发展契机

由美国次贷危机引发的金融危机迅速成为影响全球的经济危机,保险业面临着严重的挑战,但只要紧紧抓住保险业的本质特征,以科学发展观为指导,金融危机就能成为拉动保险业发展的契机。要使危机能够拉动保险业的发展,首先要转变经营理念,使保险业恢复它的本质功能。危机拉动保险的关键是产品开发,要大力进行抗风险的产品创新,开发出适应社会应对金融危机中需求的保险产品;同时在金融危机中完成保险市场转型,彻底改变保险业的形象,真正实现保险业从以保费为中心的市场转变为以风险控制为中心的市场。     

The pricing of audit and non-audit services in a regulated environment: a longitudinal study of the UK life insurance industry

This paper studies the relationship between audit and non-audit service fees paid to the statutory auditor by UK life insurance firms, utilising an extensive panel-data sample set for the period 1999–2009. Consistent with a knowledge spillover (impairment of independence) hypothesis, we predict and find that audit fees are positively (negatively) associated with actuarial (tax service) fees. Additionally, our results indicate that regulatory changes enforced after 2004 deterred UK life insurance firms from purchasing non-audit services that are perceived to impair auditor independence. Finally, we find evidence concerning the inter-temporal determination of audit fees.     

Seasonal mortality for fractional ages in short term life insurance

Abstract

Fernández-Durán, and Gregorio-Domínguez, Seasonal Mortality for Fractional Ages in Life Insurance. Scandinavian Actuarial Journal. A uniform distribution of deaths between integral ages is a widely used assumption for estimating future-lifetimes; however, this assumption does not necessarily reflect the true distribution of deaths throughout the year. We propose the use of a seasonal mortality assumption for estimating the distribution of future-lifetimes between integral ages: this assumption accounts for the number of deaths that occurs in given months of the year, including the excess mortality that is observed in winter months. The impact of this seasonal mortality assumption on short-term life insurance premium calculations is then examined by applying the proposed assumption to Mexican mortality data.     

考察美俄保险市场的若干思考

美国是全球最大的保险市场,交易活跃,成熟度高。同时,美国也是此次全球金融危机的发源地,其保险业受到金融海啸的巨大冲击和影响。与此相对的,俄罗斯是全球新兴的保险市场,发展较快但具有鲜明的转轨经济特征,市场机制和监管制度都尚未成型。美俄保险业各具特点,是全球范围内不同发展阶段保险市场的重要代表。在全球金融危机爆发一周年前夕,我们对美俄两国的保险业及保险监管进行了考察,对金融危机造成的影响和两国政府的应对措施进行了分析研究,并在此基础上,结合中国保险市场面临的形势和问题,形成了若干思考和建议。     

坚持科学监管防范化解风险促进保险业稳健发展

本文首先回顾了2010年保险监管工作的主要情况,对当前保险监管面临的复杂形势进行了准确、细致分析,然后对2011年的保险监管工作作出了部署,提出要把防范化解风险作为保险监管的首要任务,继续规范保险市场秩序,严肃查处保险领域重点案件,加强保险公司内控监管,切实保护被保险人利益,不断加强监管自身建设,认真做好"十二五"发展...