Limited liability creates a conict of interests between policyholders and shareholders ofinsurance companies. It provides shareholders with incentives to increase the risk of theinsurer's assets and liabilities which, in turn, might reduce the value policyholders attach toand premiums they are...

In 2003, Swiss Re introduced a mortality-based security designed to hedge excessive mortality changes for its life book of business. The concern was apparently brevity risk, i.e., the risk of premature death. The brevity risk due to a pandemic is similar to the property risk associated with...

This paper provides an overview of research and debate over whether insurance poses systemic risk, with a focus on U.S. life insurance. It considers the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) process for designating nonbank financial institutions as systemically important and subject to...

We analyze an initiative by insurance regulators to reform capital regulations for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) by replacing credit ratings with third-party estimates of expected credit losses and by considering an insurer's exposure to future losses when determining regulatory capital....

This paper aims at providing a conceptual distinction between banking and insurance with regard to systemic regulation. It discusses key differences and similarities as to how both sectors interact with the financial system. Insurers interact as financial intermediaries and through financial...

Homeowners’ insurance provides households financial protection from climate losses. To improve access and affordability, state regulators impose price controls on insurance companies. Using novel data, we construct a new measure of rate setting frictions for individual states and show that...

Homeowners’ insurance, a $15 trillion market by coverage, provides households financial protection from climate losses. Insurance premiums (rates) are subject to significant regulations at a state level in the United States. Using novel data on filings made by insurers to regulators, we...

Insurance pricing is subject to stricter regulation in some states than others. This cross-sectional variation, coupled with the occurrence of staggered deregulation in several states, enables a powerful test of the political cost hypothesis that managers manipulate accruals to mitigate adverse...

An analysis of the effects of natural hazards on society does not solely depend on a region's topographic or climatic exposure to natural processes, but the region's institutional resilience to natural processes that ultimately determines whether natural processes result in a natural hazard or...

Catastrophe bonds (cat bonds) often use index triggers, such as, for instance, parametric descriptions of a catastrophe. This implies the problem of the so-called basis risk, resulting from the fact that, in contrast to traditional reinsurance, this kind of coverage cannotbe a perfect hedge for...