In some European countries, the liberalization of the motor insurance market occurred in the 1990s led to increasing fares and claims with profits staying stable or decreasing. In this paper, we argue that these phenomena are due to the impact of liberalization on the companies' optimal choices....

It is widely recognized that market failure prevents efficient risk sharing in natural disaster insurance. As a consequence, many countries adopted institutional frameworks presenting public sector participation, often praised as public-private partnerships. We define risk selection as a...

We model natural disaster insurance in France. We explicitly take into account the main institutional features of the system, such as the uniform premium rate in both high and low risk regions and the existence of a state reinsurance company. Our model indicates that the institutional set-up is...

We examine market, interest rate risk, and interdependencies in returns and return volatilities across three insurer segments within a System-GARCH framework. Three main results are obtained: market risk is greatest for accident amp; health (Aamp;H) insurers, followed by life (Life) and property...

This paper analyzes the productivity and efficiency effects of mergers and acquisitions (Mamp;As) in the U.S. property-liability insurance industry during the period 1994-2003 using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity indices. We seek to determine whether Mamp;As are...

It is widely recognized that market failure prevents efficient risk sharing in natural-disaster insurance, leading to several public-private partnership arrangements across the globe. We argue that risk selection by the private partner is potentially an important issue. We illustrate our...

This paper investigates the cost efficiency and competitive behaviour of the non-life - or property and casualty - insurance market in the Netherlands over the period 1995-2012. We focus on the 2006 health care reform, where public health care insurance has been included in the non-life...

This paper tests the presence of multiple independent submarkets in the Italian motor insurance industry. Independence is motivated by administrative boundaries among provinces and by further locational reasons. We find that the independence effects are sufficient to induce a minimum degree of...

Sutton (1998) has recently proposed a theoretical lower bound to firm size inequality when a market is made of several independent submarkets. His results are valid asymptotically, as the number of submarkets becomes arbitrarily large. We show that, in small samples, his results can be...

We model natural disaster insurance in France. We explicitly take into account the main institutional features of the system, such as the uniform premium rate in both high and low risk regions and the existence of a state reinsurance company. Our model indicates that the institutional set-up is...