Volume 5, Issue 2

A large body of literature addresses the determination of the economic, financial and institutional factors that significantly influence variations of life insurance demand across countries. Chui and Kwok (2008) included four cultural variables developed by IBM psychologist Hofstede and demonstrated that culture has a profound impact on life insurance consumption. We extend Chui and Kwok's work by analyzing the fifth Hofstede cultural dimension: Long-Term Orientation, a variable that scores countries based on adherence to Confucian principles such as perseverance and thrift, respect of tradition and family values, and honoring of parents and ancestors. After building a database that includes values of 17 variables for 27 countries over a period of 9 years, we apply an unbalanced panel GLS regression model to prove that Long-Term Orientation has a strong positive influence on life insurance demand. Additionally, two new variables, not used in previous life insurance literature, are also found to impact life insurance demand: a modified Herfindahl index and the use of a Common Law legal system. Several robustness tests confirm the importance of Long-Term Orientation, leading to the conclusion that life insurance consumption is bound to increase rapidly in Asia, as its GDP per capita increases.

Longevity risk and the modeling of trends and volatility for mortality improvement have attracted increased attention driven by ageing populations around the world and the expected financial implications. The original Lee-Carter model that was used for longevity risk assessment included a single improvement factor with differential impacts by age. Financial models that allow for risk pricing and risk management have attracted increasing attention along with multiple factor models. This paper investigates trends, including common trends through co-integration, and the factors driving the volatility of mortality using principal components analysis for a number of developed countries including Australia, England, Japan, Norway and USA. The results demonstrate the need for multiple factors for modeling mortality rates across all these countries. The basic structure of the Lee-Carter model cannot adequately model the random variation and the full risk structure of mortality changes. Trends by country are found to be stochastic. Common trends and co-integrating relationships are found across ages highlighting the benefits from modeling mortality rates as a system in a Vector-Autoregressive (VAR) model and capturing long run equilibrium relationships in a Vector Error-Correction Model (VECM) framework.

There are many situations in which insurance companies operating in the Asian region encounter foreign exchange risk. This paper considers a stochastic threshold approach to modelling foreign exchange risks in some Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets. The class of self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) models is used. These models are able to capture the exchange rate band phenomenon that has been discussed in the monetary economics literature. Both ordinary least squares and robust modelling procedures are considered.

Political risk insurance is an insurance product sold to firms as a means to protect them against some political risks associated with investing abroad. This paper argues that political risk insurance may in fact be a source of political risk. Looking at cases in the Asia-Pacific region, we argue that investing firms should exercise caution when considering political risk insurance. We conclude with several recommendations for reform of the political risk insurance industry.

A dynamic model of self insurance and market insurance demand against uncertain natural hazards is developed where agents incur emotional costs when the true information about potential future catastrophes becomes known. Agents purposefully ignore the incoming signals about future hazards in order to avoid finding out the true information. Faced with the emotional costs associated with true information revelation, self-deception through true information avoidance effort may be the optimal strategy to maximize current and future expected utility. Government interventions for complementing private risk mitigation and adaptation through incentives and regulations may have a varying influence on such agents exhibiting emotional costs.

This paper proposes an integrated risk management plan for catastrophe risks in the European Union, consisting of three layers. The private markets would have the first layer of responsibility, while the National Catastrophe Insurance Organizations would represent the second layer. This layer would in turn be supported by the European Group of National Catastrophe Organizations (EUROCAT), a new organization operating under the auspices of the European Commission. An approach that utilizes a pan-European reinsurance program is proven to be the most efficient solution for minimizing the total cost of catastrophe risks in the European Union. EUROCAT would be a reinsurer of last resort and provide reinsurance to qualified state or regional catastrophe insurance funds. Member-state funds would be required to adopt adequate disaster response and management mechanisms and enforce reasonable building code, land use, and mitigation efforts to minimize the amount of insured losses. As the reinsurance premiums charged by EUROCAT would be risk-based, the pricing mechanism would be used to encourage active development and enforcement of these standards.