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For the financial service industry, company–customer conflict is a topic that deserves special attention. This study explores the impacts of ethics institutionalization on the life insurance agents' ethical decision-making under the company–customer conflicts.

Two types of company–customer conflicts are studied. In one situation, selling the life insurance product is profitable to the life insurance company, but the product is unsuitable for the customer. In another situation, selling the life insurance product is unprofitable to the life insurance company, while the product will fully satisfy the customer's interests. The study selects Taiwan's full-time life insurance agents as a sample.

The main results show that implicit ethics institutionalization has a stronger influence on teleological evaluations and deontological evaluations. This study then finds that different types of company–customer conflicts would change the influences of teleological evaluations on ethical intentions and cause different influences of implicit ethics institutionalization on teleological evaluations and deontological evaluations.

Ethics institutionalization and company–customer conflicts are important issues in the literature. This is the first study to discuss the roles that ethics institutionalization and company–customer conflicts play in the ethical decision-making of life insurance agents.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to answer the following question: What are the consequences of sunflower behavior as well as spread behavior for how asset-liability management is administrated in a life insurance company?

This paper takes into account the following: the chief executive officer (CEO) of a life insurance company confirms the board of directors’ belief – the preference of the like of higher return relative to the dislike of higher risk; the authors call such behavior sunflower management; the life insurance policyholder is entitled to a guaranteed interest rate and a participation percentage of the company’s investment surplus; and the authors examine the optimal insurer interest margin, i.e., the spread between the loan rate and the guaranteed rate.

Sunflower management translates into lower utility for the CEO and makes the CEO more prudent to risk-taking at an increased insurer interest margin for the provision of life insurance contracts. The effect of the guaranteed rate on the margin is ambiguous and depends on the level of guarantee itself. An increase in the participation level decreases the CEO’s loan risk-taking at an increased margin. It is shown that a trend toward higher return like of the board’s belief produces a corresponding trend toward the CEO’s decreasing risk-taking when the return like is revealed strongly. The results indicate that sunflower management as such is an important determinant in ensuring a safe insurance system.

This is the first paper to construct a contingent claim model to evaluate the expected value of the CEO’s utility function defined in terms of the equity returns and the equity risks of a life insurance company. The model explicitly considers CEO sunflower behavior, CEO spread behavior and the limited liability of shareholders.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate revenue efficiency performance of life insurance companies in India. The study also compares if private or public insurance sector is more “revenue efficient”. Furthermore, the study determines the nature of return to scale (RTS) and identifies the leaders and laggards amongst insurance companies operating in India.

Revenue efficiency is calculated by employing data envelopment analysis – a non-parametric approach, on a data set of 24 insurance companies over the period 2013–2014 to 2017–2018.

The empirical results suggest that life insurance companies in India could generate only 34.4% of revenue, which is very less than what these are expected to generate from the same inputs. Majority of life insurance companies operating in India are operating at decreasing return to scale (DRS). There is a reduction in leaders and the highest proportion of companies is falling in the category of laggards.

As per the best knowledge of researchers, no empirical work has been carried out with respect to measuring the revenue efficiency of Indian insurance companies. The current study appropriately fills the gap by not only calculating the revenue efficiency scores of insurance companies in India but also provides insights into the causes of revenue inefficiencies. It also gives implications for efficient and effective management of insurance companies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the risk management practices of life assurance firms and non‐life insurance firms.

Through a comparative case study methodology, the study assesses the state of risk management in both life assurance companies and non‐life insurance firms to determine whether they exhibit different or similar risk management practices. The results of the survey were also analyzed and compared to the principles of good practices in financial risk management.

The findings of the study revealed some differences and similarities in the risk management practices of life and non‐life insurance firms. Almost all the life companies have stated their risk appetite levels, which enable them to identify which risks to absorb and which ones to transfer. But non‐life insurance firms have not laid down their risk tolerance levels explicitly. The results further revealed that the industry lacks sufficient personnel with the requisite risk management skills and that the sector does not manage risks proactively, rather they do so in a reactive response to regulatory directives.

Effective management of risks by insurers will increase the penetration of insurance in Ghana.

Risk management is a crucial issue, not only for the survival and profitability of the insurance industry, but also for the socio‐economic growth and development of the whole economy. As major risks underwriters, insurance companies need to adopt good practices or quality measures in the management of financial risk. This is important, more so, as the industry prepares to re‐position itself to underwrite the risks in the emerging oil and gas industry of Ghana.

Research into financial risk management in the insurance industry from the Ghanaian perspective is rare. This study is therefore timely and its findings are invaluable for the efficient management of financial risk in the insurance industry.

This study is an exploratory study investigating firm-specific internal factors that influence the profitability performance of selected life insurance firms in eight Asian countries (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia) from 2008-2014. This paper aims to focus on internal rather than external factors based on the resource-based view suggesting that the internal resources of a firm are key to gaining competitive advantage.

The authors used panel data estimation model to test our six hypotheses on these eight selected countries for the period between 2008 and 2014.

A random effect model reveals that size, volume of capital and underwriting risk are significantly related to the profitability of Asian life insurance firm, measured as return on assets. Premium growth, asset tangibility and liquidity are insignificant predictors of the profitability performance of these life insurance firms.

Three implications of this study are that life insurance firms need to proactively tap new business opportunities by attracting younger generation customers via e-marketing technologies; secure larger capital base to finance their market expansion strategies; and focus on intangible resources such as goodwill, brand equity and reputation.

This study contributes to the literature by conducting an exploratory regional-based panel study of Asian life insurance firms to find common factors that contribute towards profitability. The study is conducted on a collective sample of Asian life insurance firms based on the premise that the firms included in the sample engage in cross-border activities and share the same international financial reporting standards. These commonalities allow us to treat the firms jointly in a somewhat similar Asian macroeconomic environment.

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.

Systematic mortality risk, i.e. the risk of unexpected changes in mortality and survival rates, can substantially impact a life insurers' risk and solvency situation. By using the “natural hedge” between life insurance and annuities, insurance companies have an effective tool for reducing their net‐exposure. The purpose of this paper is to analyze this risk management tool and to quantify its effectiveness in hedging against changes in mortality with respect to default risk measures.

To achieve this goal, the paper models the insurance company as a whole and takes into account the interaction between assets and liabilities. Systematic mortality risk is considered in two ways. First, systematic mortality risk is modeled using scenario analyses and, second, empirically observed changes in mortality rates for the last 10‐15 years are used.

The paper demonstrates that the consideration of both the asset and liability side is vital to obtain deeper insight into the impact of natural hedging on an insurer's risk situation and shows how to reach a desired safety level while simultaneously immunizing the portfolio against changes in mortality rates.

The paper contributes to the literature by considering the insurance company as a whole in a multi‐period setting and taking into account both, assets and liabilities, as well as their interaction. Furthermore, the paper shows how to obtain a desired safety level while simultaneously immunizing a portfolio against changes in default risk.

The aim of this research is to assess the financial performance of the life insurance industry of an emerging economy. In particular the study delves into the major determinants of the profitability of the life insurance industry of Ghana. The study also examines the relationship among the three measures of insurers' profitability, which are investment income, underwriting profit and the overall (total) net profit.

The annual financial statements of ten life insurance companies covering a period of 11 years (2000‐2010) were sampled and analyzed through panel regression.

The findings indicate that whereas gross written premiums have a positive relationship with insurers' sales profitability, its relationship with investment income is a negative one. Also, the results showed that life insurers have been incurring large underwriting losses due to overtrading and price undercutting. The results further revealed a setting‐off rather than a complementary relationship between underwriting profit and investment income towards the enhancement of the overall profitability of life insurers.

The policy implications of this study for the stakeholders of the life insurance industry are enormous. For instance, insurers must have well‐resourced actuary departments to perform price validation of all policies in order to prevent over‐trading and price undercutting by insurance marketing agents. In addition, the intention of the NIC to adopt a risk‐based approach in its supervision is not only timely but a very significant move that will improve upon the accounting and records keeping standards of the industry as well as the governance and risk management structures of the sector.

Being too obsessed with premium growth without adequate price validation can lead to self‐destruction such as huge underwriting losses. Large underwriting losses can lead to insurance insolvency during periods of cluster claims.

This study fulfills an urgent need to investigate the things that are crucial for the survival, growth and profitability of life insurers in an emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine insurers’ and intermediaries’ perceptions of the response to Thailand's non‐life insurance industry to deregulation.

This research paper is based on existing literature and consultation with industry experts, resulting in the development of a 13‐variable questionnaire on perceptions of the local non‐life insurance industry's response to deregulation. A convenience sampling technique was used for the survey respondents, who comprised two groups (insurers and intermediaries), involved in the non‐life insurance industry in Thailand. Factor analysis was applied to the 246 responses to provide some exploratory analysis of underlying factors that account for the patterns among the variables.

The results of the factor analysis derived four factors that explain the perceptions of insurers and intermediaries to the response of local non‐life insurance industry to deregulation. The four factors include survival, alliance, local knowledge, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Furthermore, the findings indicate that whereas insurers perceived that survival would be the highest priority for local insurers, it was considered to be a secondary priority by the intermediaries. The latter group perceived that alliances and local knowledge were the most significant priorities for local insurance companies after deregulation.

The data gathered for the study are limited to the perceptions of two respondent groups from one industry. Moreover, this paper did not consider the views of policy makers or the variables that relate to or are caused by deregulation factors. Therefore, future research may extend these findings to other industries, countries, and respondents to provide a more general application.

The research findings offer managerial implications for both insurers and intermediaries and also implications for researchers on refocusing their efforts in managing non‐life insurance companies. Local insurers should improve and generate factors such as financial strength, accurate pricing, innovative sale methods, an understanding of the local culture, and alliances with other industries.

The paper presents an original insight into an important element of insurers’ and intermediaries’ perspectives on response of local insurance companies after deregulation to the Thai non‐life insurance industry.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of insurance companies in Ghana using a two‐stage procedure to ascertain whether insurance companies are cost efficient and also to examine the efficiency determinants of insurance companies.

Using a cross‐sectional data set of 30 firms over the period 2006‐2008, the study evaluates the efficiency scores by applying a data envelopment analysis that allows the inclusion of multiple inputs and outputs in the production frontier. The study also employs a regression model to identify the key determinants of efficiency of the Ghanaian insurance industry.

The empirical results in the first stage suggest higher average efficiency scores for life insurance business than non‐life insurance companies. In the second stage, the authors observe that the drive for market share, firm size and the ratio of equity to total invested assets are important determinants of an insurance firm's efficiency.

The findings of this study provide insights into the cost efficiency of insurance companies in Ghana. This has implications for the efficient management of insurance firms in the country.