Social Security benefits are currently provided as a lifelong benefit stream, though some workers would be willing to trade a portion of their annuity streams in exchange for a lump sum amount. This paper explores whether allowing people to receive a lump sum as a payment for delayed retirement...

It is a well-known aspect that the different segments of financial market don’t work distinctly. The specific phenomena and processes of a certain area are strongly influenced by the adjacent area’s evolution and, in the same manner, these are influencing the related activity segments. This...

The Solvency 2 Directive, which will come into force on January 1st 2016, represents an opportunity to not only improve insurers’ operations, but also to develop significant competitive advantage in a challenging market. The new regulation will have very significant effects on all business...

Securitisation is growing at a moderate pace in France. With total outstanding securitised assets of EUR 215 billion at mid-2013, France ranks fifth in the euro area. The majority of securitised assets are loans to French residents. Securitisation has facilitated banks’ access to Eurosystem...

This paper analyzes the characteristics of U.S. insurers for purposes of determining whether they are systemically risky. More specifically, primary factors (size, interconnectedness, and lack of substitutability) and contributing factors (leverage, liquidity risk and maturity mismatch,...

This paper examines consumer protection regulation in insurance markets and discusses how regulation could be made more efficient and robust. The paper argues that regulatory costs could be lowered and effectiveness enhanced by better targeting regulations to address market failures. Regulations...

Traditionally, individual states have shared responsibility for regulating the US insurance industry. The Dodd-Frank Act changes this by tasking the Federal Reserve with regulating the systemic risks that particularly large insurance organizations might pose and assigning the regulation of...

We investigate the relationship between risk taking of life-health (LH) insurers and health (LH) insurers and stability of their institutional ownership within a simultaneous equation system model. Several results stability of their institutional ownership within a simultaneous equation system...

Insurance companies use various investment policies regarding each category of financial instruments. The importance of choosing a profitable investment policy is reflected in its results because based on these results insurance companies are appreciated by shareholders and customers. The main...

Classical oligopoly models predict that firms differentiate vertically as a way of softening price competition, but some metrics suggest very little quality differentiation in the U.S. auto insurance market. I explain this phenomenon using the fact that risk-averse insurance companies with...