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Buy-sell arrangements for the death of a co-owner may be funded with life insurance. Although many factors may enter the decision of whether to fund the buy-sell with life insurance, the degree of tolerance to risk is a major factor. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the risk aversion necessary to make life insurance funding the preferred option.

The decision whether to use life insurance was modeled using the expected utility theorem under state-dependent utility. Aversion to risk was varied to determine at what risk aversion levels insurance was preferred. Analysis was done for difference ages and thus mortality risk and for difference levels of insurance markups.

Life insurance funding is preferred at relatively low amounts of risk aversion, especially if the surviving partner becomes more risk averse upon the co-owner's death. A lower percentage of life insurance would be used if insurance premiums are significantly above actuarially fair premiums.

Given currently available insurance rates, most closely held small businesses probably should fund their buy-sell arrangements activated upon death of a partner with life insurance. However, cash flow constraints may hinder insurance purchase and planning may be myopic in that more imminent strategy issues may be present that a future death.

Although the use of life insurance to fund buy-sell arrangements is typically suggested for the small closely held business, little economic or financial analysis has been completed to date.

The purpose of this paper is is to identify the main determinants of insurance profitability on life and non-life segments to obtain which variables affect in each market of the Ecuadorian insurance sector.

The authors use a large panel data set with financial information from 2001 to 2017 and estimate the determinants through a panel corrected standard errors regression.

The authors found that net premiums, technical reserves, capital ratio and score efficiency are micro-determinants in the life insurance sector, whereas in the non-life sector, the micro-determinants include also claim level and liquidity ratio; moreover, the authors found that HHI is a determinant of profitability only in the life insurance. Among the macro determinants set, the authors found that the interest rate has also a significant impact both in the life and non-life insurance.

The authors analyze a dollarized emerging country, which is the first time in this kind of studies. The authors also include the structure-conduct-performance and relative market power paradigm as well as the ES hypothesis, calculated through the data envelopment analysis, as determinants of insurance profitability. Finally, this is the first research to examine the determinants of profitability in Latin American and Caribbean insurers.

International business/International marketing.

Courses: the case is directly related to courses on “International Business” and “International Marketing” in the Master of Business Administration programme.

Training programmes: management development programmes for working executives, on the topics “Business across borders”, “Business stabilization in foreign markets”.

In 1999, the liberalization of the insurance sector as per the recommendations of the Malhotra committee gave way for privatization and foreign firms entered this sector through joint ventures. The business growth, which was enjoyed by these firms from 1999 to 2008, was tremendous. The growth percentage started declining following the global economic downturn in the capital markets. This situation compelled the insurance firms to re-look into their business strategy. On one hand whatever growth they had, 80 percent of it was through unit linked insurance plans depending on the capital market. On the other, it was identified that in a country like India the untapped market potential was among the rural millions. Reaching those people who are at the bottom of the pyramid necessitated a completely new business model to be developed as the need of the hour. The take stock of the position at this vnjuncture is the crux of the present case study, which envisages finding out alternative delivery models to suit the Indian rural market taking into account the intrinsic nature of life insurance and the basic living styles and mentality of the rural folk.

After discussion and analysis of this case, students will be able to:

• understand how market culture in a target country differs from that in the home country;

• appreciate how challenges in a developing country market have their own unique features to be understood;

• identify various courses of action and evaluate them on the basis of the host country factors;

• understand the “international planning process”; and

• appreciate how important it is for a country manager of a multinational firm to plan and execute the marketing mix suited to the inherent qualities of the target market.

understand how market culture in a target country differs from that in the home country;

appreciate how challenges in a developing country market have their own unique features to be understood;

identify various courses of action and evaluate them on the basis of the host country factors;

understand the “international planning process”; and

appreciate how important it is for a country manager of a multinational firm to plan and execute the marketing mix suited to the inherent qualities of the target market.

Teaching notes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the human resource factors (rewards, training teamwork and empowerment) that affect service recovery performance (SRP) of customer service employees in life insurances companies. Life insurances industries in Malaysia are facing stiff competitions due to growing consumerism, changing consumer choices and expectations. SRP is very important aspect in the insurances firms toward retaining the customer and one of the key competitive advantages for sustainability and adding value to the organization in the future.

The data obtained from 350 customer service employees based on convenience sampling were analyzed using regression and hierarchical analysis.

There are two factors, namely, empowerment and training, affecting the SRP. The employment status moderated the relationship between reward and SRP. The limitations of this study have been noted and further research suggestions are also included that are very important for SRP.

This study has added knowledge regarding the factors that affect SRP, in general, and precisely in life insurance industries in Malaysian context.

This study aims to investigate the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in modulating the effect of governance on insurance penetration in 42 Sub-Saharan African countries using data for the period 2004-2014.

Two insurance indicators are used in the analysis, namely, life insurance and non-life insurance. The three ICT modulating dynamics used include mobile phone penetration, internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions. Six governance channels are also considered, namely, political stability, “voice & accountability”, regulation quality, government effectiveness, the rule of law and corruption-control. The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments.

The following main findings are established. First, mobile phone penetration does not significantly modulate governance channels to positively affect life insurance while it effectively complements “voice & accountability” to induce a positive net effect on non-life insurance. Second, internet penetration complements governance dynamics of political stability, government effectiveness and rule of law to induce positive net effects on life insurance and corruption-control for an overall positive effect on non-life insurance. Third, the relevance of fixed broadband subscriptions in promoting life insurance is apparent via governance channels of regulation quality, government effectiveness and the rule of law while fixed broadband subscriptions do not induce significant overall net effects on non-life insurance though the conditional effects are overwhelmingly significant.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, studies on the relevance of ICT in promoting insurance consumption through governance channels are sparse, especially for a region such as Sub-Saharan Africa where insurance penetration is low compared to other regions of the world.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the macroeconomic determinants of life insurance demand in India. The recent decline in life insurance activity calls for a study on the factors influencing life insurance demand in India.

This study employs econometric techniques like augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Johansen cointegration test, vector error correction models and the Granger causality test to estimate the macroeconomic predictors of life insurance demand in India, during the period 1980-1981 to 2013-2014.

Financial sector development and inflation positively influence life insurance demand in India. The real rate of interest and income are negatively related to life insurance consumption. The study finds an insignificant relation between the level of social security expenditure and life insurance buying. Financial sector development is found to Granger-cause life insurance demand.

Product-wise analysis of life insurance demand is not attempted due to lack of unit-level data. The impact of regulatory changes on life insurance demand in India is not attempted.

Intervention by the policy makers is required to arrest the decline of life insurance activity in India. Efforts are required to widen the financial sector of the Indian economy to accelerate the growth of life insurance activity.

The paper introduces a new measure of life insurance demand, the total regular new business premium, in the estimation of life insurance demand determination.

In the past two decades, many emerging economies have been witnessed the strong growth of their life insurance industry. While research in the demand for life insurance has attracted much attention since the 1960s, most studies have focused on cross‐country studies or well‐established markets in developed countries. As a result of cross‐national variations in life insurance consumption, it has been argued in the literature that factors shaping the demand for life insurance are complex and varied from one country to another. This paper aims to examine key determinants of the demand for life insurance in China with a view to explaining the rapid growth of the life insurance industry in China since its economic reform in 1978. Empirical investigation using a time series data analysis has shown that the main factors which have influenced people in China to purchase life insurance products are directly associated with the successful economic reform leading people to progress to higher layers of economic security, the increase in the level of education and the change in social structure. However, this research has not found a negative effect of inflation on life insurance consumption, even China experienced high inflation in the mid‐1990s.

This paper aims to compare the emergence and evolution of organizational fields through an analysis of the life insurance industries in two large emerging markets. Using institutional theory as a conceptual framework, we compare the regulatory, cognitive and normative dimensions of the life insurance industry in China and India.

The authors introduce a qualitative variation of the country institutional profile (CIP) that has been traditionally implemented as a quantitative analytical tool used to describe differences in national environments. This newly proposed methodology captures the socially embedded aspects of the phenomenon more completely than commonly employed survey-based methodology.

This analysis leads to a three-dimensional typology of constructs and themes within each national environment. These themes include the importance of regulation and protectionism, the domestic savings culture, family support structures and human capital development within the industry. The authors conclude by comparing these typologies to consider the implications for studying change in organizational fields across contexts.

As the authors reflect on the evolution of organizational fields, they demonstrate how the interplay of historical factors and new global norms results in a negotiated stance between compliance with new norms and allegiance to local interests. In terms of methodological contribution, we show how the socially embedded aspects of the examined phenomenon are explored more completely by the proposed qualitative CIP than through its quantitative variation. This approach and the analysis illustrate a complex interplay of local and global norms within a selected industry that may be missed by other research methods.

Digital technology is revolutionizing insurance distribution allowing the insurer companies to reach customers via multichannel. The aim of this study is to segment potential customers of life insurance based on their information search, purchasing channels and personal characteristics in the digital environment.

The study uses cross-sectional research survey. In total, 422 questionnaires were collected through a convenience sample of the Romanian population. The data was segmented based on consumer information touchpoints (online vs offline), purchase channel preference (offline by a professional vs online by a standardized platform) and personal characteristics (age, marital status and children).

The channel segmentation analysis revealed that information channel preferences are the most important clustering variables, followed by purchase channel preferences, marital status, having children and age. Four distinct segments were identified: young fully offliners (23.7%), mature fully offliners (31.5%), committed online searchers (23.2%) and cross-channel onliners (21.6%).

Insurance companies should adapt their communication and distribution strategy based on multichannel segmentation and should focus on digital touchpoints with costumers.

Firstly, the paper reveals multichannel and hybrid segmentation for life insurance. Secondly, it extends the already studied retail channels with search engines and companies' websites. Thirdly, it extends the behavioural variables for channel segmentation with technology acceptance behaviour, attitude towards life insurance, knowledge about life insurance, attitude towards personal selling and quality appraisal of online information sources.

This paper aims to theoretically examine the effects of regulatory policyholder protection on spread behavior and default probability of a life insurance company.

The authors construct a contingent claim model for the valuation of the equity of a life insurance company. Then, they extend it to model default risk measures associated with a more appropriate behavioral mode of strategic invested asset rate-setting under regulation.

The findings established that the optimal insurer interest margin is explicitly modeled by a spread between the loan rate and the required guaranteed rate of the company. The effect of the guaranteed rate on the insurer interest margin is positive when the barrier is low, whereas it is negative when the barrier is high. As the barrier increases, the positive effect of the guaranteed rate on the default risk is increased, the negative effect of the participation on the insurer interest margin is decreased and the positive effect of the participation on the default risk is decreased.

Several results derived that should be of interest to investors, analysts, supervising agencies and policymakers. For example, policyholders protected by increasing the guaranteed rate may create a higher risk for the life insurance company to meet its obligations.

The authors’ approach is a significant departure from the existing literature; they differentiate among path-dependent, barrier options and suggest that the life insurance company’s defaults are more commonly triggered by regulatory responses than debt default.