Bank‐Owned Life Insurance and Bank Risk

The use of bank‐owned life insurance (BOLI) has more than tripled since 2001 and has caught the attention of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. I find increases in BOLI lead to higher levels of liquidity risk, credit risk, and interest rate risk. Robustness tests confirm these results and suggest over‐ and underinvestment in BOLI and use of BOLI as a tax shelter contribute to risk increases. Results indicate that the concerns expressed by regulators are warranted, and suggest insurance may not always have the intended effect of reducing firm risk because of unintended consequences or misuse.     

Why do bank holding companies purchase bank-owned life insurance?

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Bank-owned life insurance (BOLI) is life insurance purchased by bank holding companies (BHCs) for key employees, whose proceeds can be shared by the...     

危机前后美国寿险公司不动产投资研究

基于ISIS全球保险公司数据库收录的美国寿险公司数据资料,本文研究了美国寿险公司的不动产投资情况.研究发现,从美国寿险公司的资产组合构成来看,不动产投资所占的比重还很低,且在次贷危机前后不动产投资在整个资产组合中所占的比重没有很大的变动.在美国房地产市场顶峰期的2005年,寿险公司所持有的不动产投资反而是最低的.但是,...     

How does the insurer's mobile application sales strategy perform?

While the impact of an Internet-based sales strategy on sales performance has been well studied, there is little academic research that examines the impact of a mobile application (MA) sales strategy on the sales performance of insurers. Using a unique data set for term life insurance policies from a Chinese life insurer, we study the impact of implementing this strategy on insurance purchases. We find a significant growth in the insurance purchase quantity and somewhat lower growth in premiums received from new policies. This paper determines that this is due to improved channel accessibility and the cost reduction of the MA channel. Although sales of traditional distribution channels are cannibalized in the short term by the MA distribution strategy, this substitution effect does not persist in the long run. In addition, we find that this strategy reduces impulsive purchases.     

寿险营销的创新战略——数据库营销

客户是企业的生命,也是企业唯一诉求的目标.开拓新客户,服务老客户,培养长期的忠诚的客户群,这是企业的价值所在.目前,寿险营销的核心问题就是客户问题.以代理人为主体的行销过程中,存在着准客户积累不足、新客户开拓不足、老客户留存不足、忠诚客户沉淀不足的问题.本文提出了数据库营销的创新战略,从根本上解决了服务客户时的"找不到...     

Medical Insurance Effects on Household Durable Goods Consumption: Evidence from China

In this article, we employ the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) data to investigate the effect of medical insurance on household durable goods consumption, which is closely related to China’s future rapid economic growth. We apply a logit regression model and find that medical insurance significantly promotes household durable goods consumption. Moreover, urban and rural households have different consumption choices when they are covered by medical insurance. To be more specific, urban households with medical insurance augment their consumption of refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners; rural households with medical insurance increase their purchases of color TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and computers.     

Overcoming Barriers to Life Insurance Coverage: A Behavioral Approach

While life insurance purchase decisions have long been studied, we still do not know how people decide if they need insurance or how much they need. Using in‐depth interviews, we peer into the black box of employee decision making to learn what people know about this employee benefit, and how they decide if it is of value for them. We find that individuals understand the need for life insurance, but find many behavioral economic barriers to getting adequate coverage, including mental accounting, money illusion, and a strong role of defaults. We then conduct an online experiment of the hypothetical employee‐benefit purchase scenario, and find a few, simple interventions could help individuals better decide their life insurance needs.     

On the Effects of Deposit Insurance and Observability on Bank Runs: An Experimental Study

We study the effects of deposit insurance and observability of previous actions on the emergence of bank runs by means of a controlled laboratory experiment. We consider three depositors in the line of a bank, who decide between withdrawing or keeping their money deposited. We have three treatments with different levels of deposit insurance which reflect the losses a depositor may incur in the case of a bank run. We find that different levels of deposit insurance and the possibility of observing other depositors’ actions affect the likelihood of bank runs. When decisions are not observable, higher levels of deposit insurance decrease the probability of bank runs. When decisions are observable, this need not to be the case. These results suggest that (i) observability might be considered as a partial substitute of deposit insurance and (ii) the optimal deposit insurance should take into account the degree of observability.     

企业成长的影响因素——基于中国寿险业的实证研究

企业成长理论是是近年来研究的热门话题,但在国内的文献却不多,以保险业为研究对象更少。以我国寿险企业以研究对象,检验是否遵从Gibrat法则,探讨寿险企业成长的驱动力。结果发现,国内寿险企业规模呈高度斜性分布,即企业规模不是一个纯粹随机事件,必然与某些因素相关;并选取2005年～2009年国内26家寿险企业,采用随机效应面板模型,结论是短期内企业成长与企业规模相关,并不支持Gibrat法则。另外还发现,寿险企业成长受投入成本、是否是集团企业和行业集中度等因素影响,但与分保比例和GDP增速关系不显著。     

How does deposit insurance affect bank risk? Evidence from the recent crisis

Deposit insurance is widely offered in a number of countries as part of a financial system safety net to promote stability. An unintended consequence of deposit insurance is the reduction in the incentive of depositors to monitor banks which lead to excessive risk-taking. We examine the relation between deposit insurance and bank risk and systemic fragility in the years leading up to and during the recent financial crisis. We find that generous financial safety nets increase bank risk and systemic fragility in the years leading up to the global financial crisis. However, during the crisis, bank risk is lower and systemic stability is greater in countries with deposit insurance coverage. Our findings suggest that the “moral hazard effect” of deposit insurance dominates in good times while the “stabilization effect” of deposit insurance dominates in turbulent times. The overall effect of deposit insurance over the full sample we study remains negative since the destabilizing effect during normal times is greater in magnitude compared to the stabilizing effect during global turbulence. In addition, we find that good bank supervision can alleviate the unintended consequences of deposit insurance on bank systemic risk during good times, suggesting that fostering the appropriate incentive framework is very important for ensuring systemic stability.     

Actuarial Surplus Management in United Kingdom Life Insurance Firms

This study uses 1991–99 data gathered from the United Kingdom's life insurance industry to test empirically the notion that the reported annual surplus of a life insurer may be influenced by four firm‐specific characteristics: namely, reinsurance, output mix, organizational form and firm size. Consistent with expectations, the results indicate that the annual reported surplus is positively related to reinsurance and firm size and negatively related to the degree of product diversification. Contrary to our expectations, however, we find no evidence that proprietary (stock) life insurers tend to report higher annual surpluses than mutual life insurers.     

The Determinants of Financial Derivatives Use in the United Kingdom Life Insurance Industry

This paper examines the determinants of financial derivatives use in the United Kingdom life insurance industry. We estimate a probit regression model and a Heckman two-stage sample selection regression model using a sample of eighty-eight U.K. life insurers in 1995. Our results indicate that the propensity to use derivative instruments is positively related to a firm's size, leverage and international links, and negatively related to the extent of reinsurance. We also find that mutual life insurance firms have a greater propensity than stock firms to use derivatives. The positive relation with leverage and the negative relation with reinsurance support the hypothesis that U.K. life insurers use derivatives to offset risk, rather than as a speculative means of income generation. Firm size and organizational form are the main influences on the extent of financial derivatives use.     

One-Period Model of Individual Consumption, Life Insurance, and Investment Decisions

This article studies individuals' optimal decisions on consumption, life insurance, and stock purchases in a one‐period framework. With exponential utility functions, individuals' life insurance and stock purchases are independent of each other; life insurance purchases are affected only by individuals' future income, bequest intensity, risk attitude, survival probability, and the insurance risk premium; stock purchases are affected only by individuals' risk attitude, the risk‐free rate of return, the stock return, and stock volatility. With power utility functions, life insurance and stock purchases are positively related with each other and are affected by all the factors.     

发达国家寿险次级市场的发展现状、比较及启示

寿险次级市场能够提高保险消费者的福利,促进整个保险业的发展。介绍发达国家寿险次级市场的发展概况,着重分析最早的寿险次级市场即英国市场、相对年轻的德国寿险次级市场以及规模最大的美国寿险次级市场,并对上述市场的目标保单、交易方式、监管规则、税收政策等进行比较和研究。在此基础上,明确提出中国应借鉴发达国家的经验,正确认识寿险次级市场的影响,从寿险初级市场规模、法律许可、中介机构、保险监管等方面为寿险次级市场的建立创造条件,并科学地进行寿险保单贴现交易的试点。     

The Political Economy of Deposit Insurance

This paper uses a political economy framework to analyze cross-country differences in deposit insurance coverage. It finds supporting evidence of the significance of private interest theories in explaining coverage of deposit insurance. Deposit insurance coverage is significantly higher in countries where poorly capitalized banks dominate the market and in countries where depositors are poorly educated. The analysis does not find that coverage is significantly related to political-institutional variables, such as the degree of democracy or restraints on the executive, or to proxies for the general level of institutional development, such as per capita income or property rights. These results provide evidence in support of the private interest view, according to which risky banks lobby for extensive coverage.     

Effects of Deposit Insurance Reform on Moral Hazard in US Banking

In cross sections of US banks before the deposit-insurance system was reformed in the early 1990s, bank risk-taking was positively associated with bank size and negatively associated with the value of bank charters and bank capital. These empirical associations have an easy theoretical interpretation. Bank size is positively related, while charter value and capital are negatively related, to the moral hazard associated with flat insurance premiums and other aspects of a laxly administered system. Hence the observed associations of risk-taking with size, charter value, and capital reflected the expected positive relation between moral hazard and risk-taking. We test the hypothesis that the three associations became weaker after reform. In the case of unsystematic risk, we find no evidence of significant changes for any of the three. In the case of systematic risk, we find that risk-taking associated with lower charter values and larger size is indeed significantly weaker after reform. Risk-taking associated with capital ratios is also weaker after reform, though not significantly so. Since systematic risk is undoubtedly the more appropriate measure, reform seems to have reduced moral hazard.     

Long-Term Care Insurance and Life Insurance Demand

This article investigates the interaction between life insurance and long-term care insurance markets on the demand side. In the model utility depends on both consumption and bequest, and utility from consumption is contingent on the state of health. While the demand for life insurance increases both with decreasing income and with a rising degree of altruism, the influences of these two parameters on the demand for long-term care insurance are ambiguous. If the utility shock arising from disability declines, both insurance demands will rise.     

Household Response to Government Debt: Evidence from Life Insurance Holdings

We use state‐level panel data on life insurance in force in the United States and find that a $1 increase in government debt, at either the state or federal level is associated with a $0.96 increase in the face value of the average life insurance holdings per capita for a household in the average state. This increase represents an intention to save that would almost completely offset the government debt in specific states of the world (i.e., if the insured dies). Because this state of the world is rare, the immediate increase in actual savings is only about $0.03, the cost of the additional insurance. We find, in addition, that this response occurs mainly on the intensive margin, meaning that the size of the average life insurance policy increases when government debt increases. Along the extensive margin, we find the number of policies in force falls slightly with federal debt, and rises slightly with state debt increases. The results show altruistic planning in response to changes in government debt that are consistent with Ricardian Equivalence and the long‐run neutrality of government debt.     

DOES BOARD INDEPENDENCE MATTER FOR CORPORATE INSURANCE HEDGING?

We test the effect of board independence on corporate purchases of property insurance. We find that board independence increases the incidence of property insurance use but does not have a significant effect on the extent of property insurance use given that a firm decides to insure its assets. These findings are consistent with the argument that: (1) more independent boards view it necessary to have property insurance to manage asset‐loss risks and (2) excessive insurance or insurance purchases induced by managerial risk aversion and/or self‐interest does not benefit shareholders and so may not be supported by independent boards.     

Persistency of window dressing practices in the U.S. repo markets after the GFC: The unexplored role of the deposit insurance premium

We investigate whether the regulatory improvements made in the aftermath of the global financial crisis have been effective in limiting bank downward window dressing by means of repos in the United States. We find that a strict application of the Basel III regulation wipes out incentives to engage in window dressing to bolster the level of leverage Tier 1 ratio at quarter-end. We also show that the persistency of window dressing is related to the computation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation assessment base, which motivates banks to engage in window dressing to reduce the deposit insurance premium.