The issue of subsidence is important in many parts of the country. Whether caused by mines collapsing, oil pumping, or weather, property owners are faced with how to finance these losses, which are not typically covered in standard property policies. Several states have devised funding...

Hurricane models are a significant tool used in estimating loss costs in catastrophe-prone areas. While the major hurricane loss cost models consider a consistent set of factors, there are variations in how the factors are treated in the models. This can lead to considerable variation in the...

Few studies of pension funding consider the agency conflicts that might affect pension plan management and the role of pension plans within the overall capital structure of firms. The primary purpose of this study is to determine if a relation exists between the level of insider ownership and...

Statistics gathered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation indicate that an average of 7,000 defined benefit plans were terminated per year between 1988 and 1997. Prior studies exploring motives for defined benefit pension plan terminations have focused exclusively on overfunded plans. This...

This study analyzes the impact of diversification and focus strategies on firms targeted for acquisitions. Based on a sample of acquisitions of property-liability insurers from 1993 to 1997, the study centers on two major questions: (1) whether the diversification or focus decision of the...

PCS Catastrophe Insurance Options were released in 1995 as a means of providing property and casualty insurers with a method of hedging catastrophe exposures. The options are based on the Property Claims Services Office (PCS) index of catastrophe losses. Due to the fact that the underlying index...