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This paper develops a theme identified in recent insurance sector development work: that more developed insurance markets are desirable as insurers play a more effective institutional investment role, whether this objective seeks deeper and more liquid bond or capital markets, or to see more investment in long term assets such as infrastructure or in support of climate finance. It explores the perspective of domestic insurers, summarizing positions regarding asset selection and key drivers of current and desired asset structures. The paper draws on interviews in several deep-dive countries supplemented by additional engagement for a more representative global reach. It then discusses a range of solutions that may be considered by policymakers categorized under efforts to: grow the sector so it can play a more substantive role; improve how assets are packaged and made available to insurance companies so they are more investable; review risk-based capital rules to ensure that they encourage and reward the right behavior; and check other regulations do not present unintended barriers. The paper concludes that, although domestic insurers are interested in making investments that meet these goals, they are constrained by barriers that are almost entirely external to their own operations and outside their control. With some adjustment to supply and regulatory settings, insurers should translate their interest into action, increasing their role and improving the contribution to this desirable development outcome. The paper is intended to be particularly relevant for policymakers and practitioners with less experience within insurance company operations who are looking to better understand and respond to insurance decision making.
Insurance can play a significant role in helping countries achieve the UN SDGs in terms of economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. This can be achieved through the risk transfer mechanisms of households, businesses, and the public sector. The paper has a twofold purpose. First, to help regulators and insurance policymakers in emerging markets make the case for supporting insurance market development through drawing more attention to contribution the sector can make to achieving national SDGs. Secondly, to help investors, donors, international organizations focus their insurance market development efforts in countries where the sector has the maximum potential to contribute to the achievement of SDGs. This paper considers the role of insurance companies as underwriters facilitating risk transfer, as investors and asset managers and as corporate citizens and employers. The underwriting dimension is currently the most significant but all three have a role to play in supporting the SDGs. The paper also discusses how insurance can contribute more to these goals, including through targeted interventions in countries where conditions for right for insurance market development and SGD targets will need greater support to be met. Countries were screened for performance vs. the selected SDGs, by the potential for insurance sector development, as well as for minimum necessary enabling conditions for market growth. The paper concludes that the role of insurance has been somewhat overlooked in the context of the SDGs and that this is largely because the current indicators largely do not capture metrics relating to insurance. To be able to better assess the role of insurance and motivate the industry to contribute more to the SDGs, more consistent and disaggregated data collection on the following is recommended: lines of business; invested assets; gender disaggregated data. The UN, governments and the insurance industry are also encouraged to put greater emphasis on developing the sector as a means to achieving the SDGs.
Insurance market activity, both as a financial intermediary and a provider of risk transfer and indemnification, may contribute to economic growth by allowing different risks to be managed more efficiently and by mobilizing domestic savings. During the past decade, there has been faster growth in insurance market activity, particularly in emerging markets given the process of liberalization and financial integration, which raises questions about its impact on economic growth. The author tests whether there is a causal relationship between insurance market activity (life and nonlife insurance) and economic growth. Using the generalized method of moments for dynamic models of panel data for 56 countries and for the 1976-2004 period, he finds robust evidence of a causal relationship between insurance market activity and economic growth. Both life and nonlife insurance have a positive and significant causal effect on economic growth. High-income countries drive the results in the case of life insurance. On the other hand, both high-income and developing countries drive the results in the case of nonlife insurance.
Life insurance—the promise of an insurer to pay a sum upon a person's death in exchange for a regular premium—is a bizarre enterprise. How can we monetize human life? Should we? What statistics do we use, what assumptions do we make, and what behavioral factors do we consider? First published in 1979, Morals and Markets Is a pathbreaking study exploring the development of life insurance in the United States. Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer combines economic history and a sociological perspective to advance a novel interpretation of the life insurance industry. The book pioneered a cultural approach to the analysis of morally controversial markets. Zelizer begins in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of the life insurance industry, a contentious chapter in the history of American business. Life insurance was stigmatized at first, denounced in newspapers and condemned by religious leaders as an immoral and sacrilegious gamble on human life. Over time, the business became a widely praised arrangement to secure a family's future. How did life insurance overcome cultural barriers? As Zelizer shows, the evolution of the industry in the United States matched evolving attitudes toward death, money, family relations, property, and personal legacy.
Higher insurance penetration and smaller infrastructure investment gaps has been correlated even after accounting for gross domestic product (GDP) levels, which indicates the insurance industry may have made some contributions to this development. Insurers have been promoting infrastructure investments as both asset owners and asset managers because this asset class makes sense from an asset liability management (ALM) viewpoint and they can leverage their asset management function. The stable and long-term cash flows of infrastructure assets naturally align with liabilities of insurers, particularly life insurers. Creating an ecosystem around infrastructure finance and different types of market players is of high importance. In a developing country where banks are already dominant in infrastructure financing and a risk-based framework for the banking sector constrains them from providing long-tenor financing, the roll-over model can work. Finally, governments and national supervisors can support infrastructure investments in several ways, including establishing a clear definition for infrastructure and compiling data, lowering capital charges on infrastructure investments (if their different treatment is evidence-based), facilitating credit enhancement mechanism and the increase of investible infrastructure projects, et cetera In some cases, more clarity may be required on capital charges between infrastructure and securitized assets. Restrictions on direct investments to infrastructure can also be lifted under appropriate risk-based supervision in place unless being harmful to the interests of policyholders.
This book examines the challenges for the life insurance sector in Europe arising from new technologies, socio-cultural and demographic trends, and the financial crisis. It presents theoretical and applied research in all areas related to life insurance products and markets, and explores future determinants of the insurance industry’s development by highlighting novel solutions in insurance supervision and trends in consumer protection. Drawing on their academic and practical expertise, the contributors identify problems relating to risk analysis and evaluation, demographic challenges, consumer protection, product distribution, mortality risk modeling, applications of life insurance in contemporary pension systems, financial stability and solvency of life insurers. They also examine the impact of population aging on life insurance markets and the role of digitalization. Lastly, based on an analysis of early experiences with the implementation of the Solvency II system, the book provides policy recommendations for the development of life insurance in Europe.
This paper explores insurance as a source of financial system vulnerability. It provides a brief overview of the insurance industry and reviews the risks it faces, as well as several recent failures of insurance companies that had systemic implications. Assimilation of banking-type activities by life insurers appears to be the key systemic vulnerability. Building on this experience and the experience gained under the FSAP, the paper proposes key indicators that should be compiled and used for surveillance of financial soundness of insurance companies and the insurance sector as a whole.
This book presents an in-depth historical and analytical review of the reform process in the Russian insurance sector. The report examines the state of the Russian insurance industry, analyses market dynamics and structure, and assesses the major reform initiatives that have occurred in the sector over the past years. Of crucial importance in the reform process was the revision of the organisational structure of the Russian insurance business, improvement of solvency and capitalization requirements for insurance companies, liberalization of the market, and enhancement of supervisory oversight with the establishment of the Federal Service for Insurance Supervision. The report concludes with a series of policy recommendations for policymakers and insurance market players. They are designed to further improve the legal and regulatory framework and to strengthen the insurance industry management structure, operational mechanisms and competitive capacity.
Insurance is an important part of the financial sector. It supports broader economic and general well-being in developed economies in a way that is so entrenched and accepted that it is not widely recognized. In less developed markets, insurance can remain nascent for many years and then pick up through a dynamic development phase and reach a more mature phase. As will be expected, many actors contribute to this development. This report is part of a larger effort to understand the key drivers of development in insurance sectors in a range of jurisdictions especially including the role of policy and project interventions. This report contributes to two of the identified imperatives for development in particular. Development has been found to be supported by more effective policy leadership, which needs adequate and effective metrics, and by a better implemented risk-based rather than rules-based approach to supervision.