Insurance and the corporate cost of capital

The purpose of the paper is to provide some support to the thesis that insurance may reduce the cost of capital in a company by influencing both the cost of capital components and the need for rising capital. The problem is here perceived from two perspectives the classical concept related to the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and a novel concept related to the risk-based capital structure model with the total average cost of capital (TACC). The paper explains the idea of insurance as a retrospective (post-loss) risk financing tool and the risk transfer mechanism upon it. As the risk financing tool insurance reduces the need for the balance-sheet capital in a company and thus the financial distress costs. Also, insurance may reduce the level of operating risk and thus influences the required returns of the capital providers. These observations allow emphasising the impact of insurance on the WACC. However, according to the novel concept of the risk-based capital structure, insurance (as a risk financing tool) represents an off-balance sheet capital component. As a consequence, it extends the volume of total capital. The presented conceptual model, based on the TACC concept, indicates that large volume of insurance (the insurance sum) and its relatively low cost (the insurance premium) gives the possibility to the significant reduction of the cost of capital on average. The concluding remarks discuss some dilemmas over the utility of the TACC concept.