This chapter focuses on institutional investors in the German financial markets. Institutional investors are specialized financial intermediaries who collect and manage funds on behalf of small investors toward specific objectives in terms of risk, return and maturity. The major types of...

In a two-stage model insurance companies first decide upon risk classification and then compete in prices. I show that the observed heterogeneous behavior of similar firms is compatible with rational behavior. On the deregulated German insurance market individual application of classification...

This article presents an overview of the contemporary German insurance market, its structure, players, and development trends. First, brief information about the history of the insurance industry in Germany is provided. Second, the contemporary market is analyzed in terms of its legal and...

The Single Market Project of the European Commission was supposed to change the financial service industry markedly. We provide a first attempt to assess its consequences on the insurance industry in Germany, the largest insurance market within the European Union. For this purpose we apply a...

Based on a sample of 946 German insurance intermediaries, the factors that affect the quality of the information services provided by them are studied using OLS-estimations. Applying a search theoretical approach, we analyze the impact of supply and demand side variables on service quality....

Insurance products are distributed both by independent and dependent agents, although the use of independent agents is more costly. The product quality hypothesis states that independent agents provide both insurers and customers with higher service quality and therefore, remain on the market....

This paper provides an overview on the existing systems of natural hazards insurance in Europe, their structural characteristics and peculiarities. It also discusses the difficulties of an adaptation of these systems to climate change and a growing number of natural disasters. Using the case of...

The Single Market project of the European Commission was supposed to foster productivity growth in the financial service industry. We assess its consequences on productivity development in the German insurance industry, one of the largest insurance markets within the European Union, by applying...

Bancassurance has grown to currently become a completely consolidated insurance distribution channel in the global market, even though it shows unequal levels of development depending on the social and economic characteristics of the different countries. Several factors have contributed to give...