Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine how insurance brokers control opportunism at the postcontractual stage of insurance contract in the Nigerian insurance market. Such opportunism, widely reported of insurance commercial customers, threatens the survival of the entire insurance institution while brokers' role is grossly ignored.

The paper involved the use of semi‐structured interviews of insurance broking executives and documentary analyses of how insurance brokers gather and pass on information between clients and insurers to control opportunism in the insurance market.

Findings suggest that the involvement of the insurance brokers from the claim notification stage, claim auditing to actual settlement and dispute mediation are instances of control over customers' opportunistic tendencies. Also, it is found that fear of reputation damage and brokers' professional way of handling clients' over‐exaggeration and suspicious claiming might considerably control insurance opportunism.

Involving insurance brokers in the claim settlement stage is capable of reducing insurers' claim auditing costs while guaranteeing hassle‐free claiming experience for customers and boosting the image of the insurance industry. Hence, findings are relevant for insurance companies and regulators desirous of controlling opportunism in the insurance market.

The paper extends the marketing role of brokers to the claim settlement stage by highlighting their potentials to control clients' opportunistic behaviours which threaten the insurance market.

Risk management consists of a process that involves the assessment and evaluation of risks. Identifying risks that can be reduced and risks that can be transferred (through insurance) is part of that process. The environment for insurance affects the ability of the high technology‐based entrepreneur to engage in this process. For example, the availability of product liability cover can affect the ability to develop new products. In a combined study of Scottish and West Midlands high technology‐based small firms (HTSFs), follow‐up interviews, cases and research in the insurance industry, we found that this environment is less than perfect. There are issues in the insurance industry that can lead to problems for high technology‐based entrepreneurs. These issues are associated with the availability and search costs associated with specialized insurance. Failure rates of high technology‐based entrepreneurs, although below those of other small firms, are still high. The high cost and limited availability of specialized insurance, which is sought by the high technology entrepreneur, contributes to the difficulty of the environment and adds to the costs and/or risks faced by such entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine brokers' financial incentives in the Nigerian insurance market and how they balance conflict of interest which their role engenders. The paper aims to assess how these affect the control of opportunism of customers in the Nigerian insurance market.

The study involved the use of semi‐structured interviews of insurance broking executives and documentary analyses of how incentives aid the control of opportunism in the insurance market.

Findings suggest that the Nigerian insurance market operates on highly tariff incentive system which might be hampering insurance brokers' role in bridging information asymmetries to control opportunism in the market. Conflicts of interest are also real in the insurance market.

Findings are relevant for practitioners and regulators in addressing the restrictive remuneration system which calls for liberalisation to encourage the control of opportunism in the insurance market.

The study underscores how financial incentives might be utilised to balance conflict of interest which insurance intermediation engenders.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of disclosure of sales compensations on insurance brokers’ intention to make inappropriate product recommendations.

This research examines the insurance brokers’ intention to make inappropriate product recommendations through an application of the theory of planned behavior. Surveys are used as the research instrument, and the hypotheses are tested with a between-subjects experimental design. One case of mandatory disclosure and one case of non-mandatory disclosure are compared in the research.

The results indicate that the disclosure of sales compensations is significantly associated with the subjective norms from the official authority and perceived behavioral control (PBC). The results of this study also indicate that, when the disclosure is mandatory, the PBC has a stronger effect on the insurance brokers’ intention to make biased product recommendations than dose the attitude and subjective norms. When the disclosure is non-mandatory, however, the subjective norms have a stronger effect on the insurance brokers’ intention.

The impacts of compensation disclosures on the financial professionals’ product recommendations have been less examined. This study could make a contribution to the literature by providing some empirical observations from the views of Taiwan’s life insurance brokers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of the size and timing of sales compensations, the management stringency of the insurer and the insurance broker's own moral views on product recommendations made by the brokers.

The data used in this research were gathered from life insurance broker companies in Taiwan.

The results showed that the sales compensations, perceived leniency of the insurer's underwriting and claim policy would affect the product recommendations made by the brokers.

Insurance brokers are one of the most important marketing channels in the insurance industry. However, using the insurance brokers to sell insurance may result in some ethical problems. For example, some insurance brokers may sell insurance to high-risk customers because the high-risk customers may prefer to buy more insurance and that means more sales compensations can be earned. The findings of this research may have some implications for insurance management and insurance regulation.

This study contributes to the understanding of insurance brokers' responses to adverse selection problems (high-risk customers may prefer to buy more insurance) and product recommendation decisions. The issue has been less mentioned in the financial regulation literature.

In view of the complexity of supply chain management (SCM) in the insurance industry, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper was the first to use symmetrical and asymmetrical methos to examine how the insurer’s service quality and SCM can be configurated to explain the relationships between the insurance companies and brokers as the intermediaries. This study positions insurance brokers as the insurance companies’ customers and supply chain partners, aims to examine the relationships between service quality, SCM and relationship quality.

This paper undertook two studies and used two methods to examine how the insurer’s service quality and SCM can be configurated to explain the relationships between the insurance companies and brokers as the intermediaries. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical analyses were performed including regression and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results from symmetrical analyses and fsQCA from two countries show substantial differences in how service quality and SCM affect relationship quality. In particular, fsQCA show that all service quality dimensions are important antecedent conditions of relationship quality for Portuguese brokers. Interestingly for Irish brokers, the combination of assurance, responsiveness and the insurer’ empathy conjunctively accounted for their satisfaction, whereas none of these quality factors are related to their commitment and trust. All SCM factors are important to explain the brokers’ relationship quality with their chosen insurers for both countries.

This study contributes to three areas of research: service quality, SCM and relationship marketing. Firstly, this study used an asymmetrical approach to providing insights into the effect of service quality dimensions by showcasing how these dimensions were configurated to explain the outcome of interest, rather than examining their symmetrical path coefficients. Secondly, this study identified the key factors of SCM in the insurance industry and how these factors can be configurated through Boolean algebra to explain relationship quality between supply chain partners. Finally, this study has implications for relationship marketing research.

As the study was conducted with the insurance brokers in Portugal and Ireland, the findings have implications for the insurance companies for the two countries. As different service quality factors and SCM exert different effects on relationship quality, the insurance companies should look into these factors to modify their current practice to improve relationship quality with their brokers.

Theoretically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to approach from intermediaries to address effectiveness of SCM. Methodologically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use fsQCA – a case-based approach to understand SCM and relationship quality between stakeholders.

Students will have the opportunity to learn about differentiation strategy, business plans, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis. The primary objective is to allow students to evaluate Abhishek Singh’s decisions. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to: understand the competitive landscapes in the Indian insurance broking market. Differentiate between selling and marketing. Understand the importance and application of differentiation strategy in the Indian insurance broking market. Emphasize the importance of value proposition in developing a competitive advantage for insurance broking organization. Critically analyze the internal strength and weaknesses of an insurance broking company.

RHIBPL, one of India’s largest insurance broking companies, operating for more than 12 years and has had a strong presence in eight major cities of India. RHIBPL had been known for life insurance, non-life insurance like cars, two-wheelers, Mediclaim and health. RHIBPL’s unique selling proposition was the best fit for each product and service after understanding the customer’s need. On October 16, 2020, Abhishek Singh, CDO at RHIBPL, was preparing for an upcoming management meeting on the company’s vision “to be the largest insurance provider in the country and to reach US$ 140 million by 2025,” which was communicated by the Ajay Bansal, founder and chief executive officer of RHIBPL. Singh had to prepare an action plan to achieve the RHIBPL’s vision. He had to develop and implement a differentiation strategy to achieve the RHIBPL’s vision from the available resources. How can he create a competitive advantage for RHIBPL in the highly competitive insurance broking market?

The case delineates the challenges facing an insurance broker company to achieve its new corporate vision. This case can be discussed in undergraduate and postgraduate courses (at the introductory level) in the business management discipline to understand the importance and application of differentiation strategy and competitive advantage. This case can also be significant for insurance-related courses for postgraduates and executives working in the insurance industry. The case can be useful for the courses on services marketing, strategic management, strategic marketing management and marketing management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

In this brief paper the authors consider the duties owed by professional indemnity insurance brokers to their insured clients. Given the prevalence of claims for financial mis‐selling this is an important issue of concern to all authorised advisers. Any failure to obtain or maintain cover leading to uninsured loss will naturally attract the potential attention of the broker’s own insurers. The authors summarise what the law expects of brokers in standard situations.

In this introductory overview an indication of the range of financial services that is available will be presented, along with some examples of marketing practices in relation to these services and some observations about some of the suppliers of financial services. This coverage will then be followed by a brief review of research in the field of financial services marketing, a note on careers in this field, and a summary of courses in the field.