Insurance Companies in Emerging Markets

Insurance Companies in Emerging Markets

In spite of agriculture being an important source of income growth and a potential source of investment opportunities in Kenya, farmers face numerous production risks including climate change and variability. While literature suggests that crop insurance has the potential to unlock key services that enhance farm productivity, crop insurance uptake evidence is limited, hence, this study sought to inform on ways of making crop insurance work for the smallholder producers. Data was collected from 400 maize-producing households in areas where weather index-based insurance had been promoted. Results show that uptake of crop insurance is very low and declining and, the insurance concept is also not well understood by farmers. In addition, basis risk hinders uptake of crop insurance since farmers exhibited high levels of dissatisfaction with claim payments. Furthermore, awareness and training on crop insurance, density of automated weather stations and ownership of savings account are integral factors in enhancing its uptake. Our findings therefore highlight the need to educate farmers on the principles of crop insurance and different products that exist. Similarly, designing of crop insurance products and selection of target crop enterprises should involve all stakeholders to enhance uptake. Acknowledgement :

Did September 11, 2001, change every thing in the world of risk management and insurance? Seven years after the horrendous event, the answer is “no.” No, because of the impact of the subsequent mega natural catastrophes of 2005 with Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma and the current 2008 major credit and housing crisis. As shown in table 10.1, the insured losses of the 2005 hurricanes surpassed the insured losses of 9/11. However, the hurricane losses did not hurt the net worth of insurers as did the losses of 9/11. As can be gleaned from figure 10.1, 2001 was the worst year for the insurance industry. The return on equity dipped into negative territor y. In terms of the combined ratio—the indicator of the well being of the industry (the ratio of losses plus expenses to premiums)—2001 was the worst year with the largest combined ratio, at 115.8, for the property/casualty (P/C) insurance industry. But, this resilient industry recovered quickly, as shown in figure 10.2. By 2006, the industry recovered and the combined ratio declined to a lowest level of 92.5. Figure 10.2 reflects the strong capacity of the P/C insurance industry to endure major setbacks. At the time of writing this chapter, exactly three years after the mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Gustav is fast approaching to the same region. Despite much improved risk handling and communication by all stakeholders, “the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s ability to marshal its forces quickly is still lagging.”1

Optimal Asset Location and Allocation with Taxable and Tax-Deferred Investing

To investigate workers' willingness to participate and wiliness to pay for a hypothetical industrial injury insurance scheme, to analyze the influential factors, and to provide information for policy making of the government. Multistage cluster sampling was used to select subjects: In the first stage, 9 small, medium, orlarge enterprises were selected fromthree cities (counties) in Zhejiang province, China, according to the level of economic development, transportation convenience, and cooperation of government agencies; in the second stage, several workshops were randomly selected from each of the 9 enterprises. Face-to-face interviews among all workers in the workshops were conducted by trained interviewers using a pre-designed questionnaire. It was found that 73.87% (2095) of all workers were willing to participate in the hypothetical work injury insurance scheme and to pay 2.21% of monthly wage (51.77 yuan) on average, and more than half of the workers were willing to pay less than 1%of monthly wage (35 yuan). Of the 741 workers who were not willing to participate, 327 thought that the premium should be borne by the state or enterprises, instead of individuals, and others were not willing to participate because of low income, unstable job, or poor understanding of the hypothetical industrial injury insurance scheme. Logistic regression analysis showed that workers with higher education levels, longer length of services, longer weekly working time, or more knowledge of occupational diseases showed higher willingness to participate in the scheme; workers who were exposed to physical hazards, had health records, or had participated in the existing medical insurance or industrial injury insurance were more willing to participate. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that with increasing average monthly wage, weekly working time, and self?health evaluation, the proportion of workers with willingness to pay increased; however, with increasing work intensity and awareness of occupational disease, the proportion of workers with willingness to pay decreased. The workers who were not covered by the industrial injury insurance paid more than those covered by the industrial injury insurance. The hypothetical industrial injury insurance scheme increased the applicability and advantage of independent third-party running and lifetime insurance, which significantly increased the workers' willingness to participate in or to pay for the insurance scheme. Therefore, the industrial injury insurance can be improved in these aspects to promote workers' willingness to participate in and to pay for the insurance scheme. This conclusion provided a reference for the solution of delayed or shirking corporate responsibility for paying the premium.

This thesis is based on the author's own in-house experienced the situation, to analyze the life insurance companies in the Bancassurance business strategy, how in the most effective way to operate and create a win-win? Banks and life insurance companies appears to be a different financial institution, but its business has been collaborating on many days, the life insurance company itself has a number of operating channels, such as: sales channels, Insurance Brokers Insurance Agency pathway Bancassurance .. etc. , life insurance companies are scattered its operating risks. Bancassurance which is nearly six years digging new type of operation, and in 2012 accounted for 61% of all revenue channels, all insurance companies are in this fierce competition, the thesis discussed Transglobe Bank Insurance path based on past experience, and thus the business strategy of regional IA development in the banking channel, during which face many problems, but have all the solutions, and finally explore win-win.

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is an effective tool for solving nonlinear, non-convex optimization problems, offering a quick and efficient way to identify rational asset allocations. In PSO, each particle represents a specific asset allocation and moves within the search space to optimize the defined criteria. Particles update their positions based on personal experience (individual best) and the collective experience of the swarm (global best), gradually converging toward an optimal solution. Research on applying PSO to asset allocation demonstrates that this algorithm not only optimizes expected returns but also minimizes risk in investment portfolios. With its adaptability and computational speed, PSO can become a valuable tool for investors in formulating flexible and effective asset allocation strategies in a volatile financial environment.

La crise de l’assurance responsabilité civile médicale qu’a connue la France en réaction à la «loi Kouchner» de 2002, mais que subissent également les États-Unis, a été le révélateur de l’évolution du droit de la responsabilité civile médicale. L’approche par l’analyse économique du droit que retient cet article permet d’évaluer et de discuter les effets économiques attendus des règles de responsabilité civile médicale et de débattre de l’efficacité du système de gestion du risque médical français. Si cette analyse peut, chez certains auteurs, revêtir un caractère normatif, d’autres mettent l’accent sur les effets pervers possibles en termes de médecine défensive et de judiciarisation croissante et proposent des voies de réforme praticables.

American health care is in crisis because of exploding medical malpractice litigation. Insurance premiums for doctors and malpractice lawsuits are skyrocketing, rendering doctors both afraid and unable to afford to practice medicine. Undeserving victims sue at the drop of a hat, egged on by greedy lawyers, and receive eye-popping awards that insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors struggle to pay. The plaintiffs and lawyers always win; doctors, and the nonlitigious, always lose; and affordable health care is the real victim. This, according to Tom Baker, is the myth of medical malpractice, and as a reality check he offers "The Medical Malpractice Myth", a stunning dismantling of this familiar, but inaccurate, picture of the health care industry. Are there too many medical malpractice suits? No, according to Baker; there is actually too much medical malpractice, with only a fraction of the cases ever seeing the inside of a courtroom. Is too much litigation to blame for the malpractice insurance crisis? No, for that we can look to financial trends and competitive behavior in the insurance industry. Point by point, Baker - a leading authority on insurance and law - pulls together research that demolishes the myths that have taken hold and suggests a series of legal reforms that would help doctors manage malpractice insurance while also improving patient safety and medical accountability. "The Medical Malpractice Myth" is a book aimed squarely at general readers but with radical conclusions that speak to the highest level of domestic policymaking.

Fixed rate, premiums and insurance coverage for policyholders and insurance companies in traditional life insurance have increased certain risks. For this reason, we consider studying variable life insurance. The biggest difference between the two insurance is that whether the actual death benefit of volatility is changeable. This paper studied the change of the premium when the premium changes in proportion to the death benefit and when it is fixed. And, it put forward a way to pay the death benefit, named “pay off increasing amount insurance”. Finally, this paper simulated the mean and variance of the death benefit using Monte Carlo method, and also compared the advantage and disadvantages of each approach.

Bonus-malus system in motor vehicle insurance can encourage people to drive more carefully by rewarding lowrisk policy-holders and punishing high-risk policy-holders at the time of renewal. China's BMS transfer rule is related to claim numbers in the past periods only, and it is unfair for the insureds whose claim amount is small. By analyzing risk factors in motor vehicle insurance, two other factors, claim amount and responsability in accidents, are added in transfer rule to optimize BMS. In optimized BMS, policy-holders with same claim numbers but with different claim amounts or with different responsaility in accidents will pay different amounts of insurance premium. It is more fair for insureds and is good for insurance companies to identify risks and control risks.

This study describes the importance and development of agricultural insurance sector in Uzbekistan. Agricultural insurance sector in Uzbekistan was established with the state initiative and government organizations still play an important role in service provision. However, agricultural insurance functions without state subsidies and about 30 percent of the crops are insured. This is comparatively better result while compared to other countries in the region. However, sectors still has several development constraints which are not discussed in the international literature. Therefore, the objective of this study is to describe the development path and challenges in agricultural insurance market in Uzbekistan. Discussions in the study show that access to favorable credit and very high risk averseness of agricultural producers created demand for agricultural insurance in the country which is functioning without the state subsidies. However, premium rates currently charged seem to be very high when compared neighboring countries who subsidize agricultural products. Furthermore, lack of coverage during the systemic drought years could be considered another challenge constraining further development of insurance market in Uzbek agriculture. Establishment of index insurance market could be considered as an alternative option to provide coverage during the systemic drought years since price of the index-based products lower than multiple crop insurance products.

We often take published mortality rates for granted. This is a dangerous practice because the data sources may gather the information in ways that lead to potentially misleading results. This is particularly true when market selection enters the process because individuals with higher risk of death are more likely to apply for insurance and insurance companies underwrite the risks to attempt to reverse the bias caused by self-selection. Moreover, if the data is to be used for forecasting future mortality we must pay due attention to the basis on which the mortality is calculated; period mortalities and cohort mortalities can be projected, but the applicability of the projections to a particular application must be considered with some care. The methods used in forecasting the mortality of policyholders and annuitants is a major determinant of the risk that insurers bear and of the profit they may be expected to receive; it is also a major determinant of the solvency of social insurance institutions. In particular, methods that do not take into account the impact of market selection on the correlation between mortality of the accepted policyholders and the amount of insurance agreed upon are likely to cause serious biases in the estimation of the required premiums.

Medical Malpractice in Gastroenterology

As anyone paying attention during the 2008-2009 financial crisis is aware, the Canadian financial system weathered the storm uniquely well. Exactly why Canada’s system remained so comparatively stable, while so many other foreign systems broke down, is a question that remains largely unsettled. One explanation may be that the regulatory system that emerged from a very specific history of prior crises had both prepared Canada well for such a crisis, and responded effectively as the crisis unfolded. But the very regulatory system that provided stability in recent years may also be at risk of becoming warped by its own success, with regulators so emboldened by the acclaim for their recent achievements that they overreach to ensure their track record remains unblemished in the future.The stunning collapse of a pair of western Canadian banks, a number of major Canadian trust companies and several insurance companies, as well as some other precarious near misses in the 1980s and 1990s, were a shock to the financial regulatory system, highlighting deficiencies that would be addressed with new regulations and, most notably, the creation of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). Canada’s centralized regulatory approach, through the OSFI and just four other major regulatory bodies, has proved both more elegant and effective than, for instance, the more complicated, more convoluted and more decentralized American financial-oversight system. But some regulated companies, insurers in particular, have long maintained that the concentration of power in Canada’s large banks has resulted in a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach that does not offer a relatively lighter burden for smaller institutions, potentially stifling growth. In other words, an over-emphasis on stability may be hampering market efficiency. Nor is there any economic evidence to shed light on whether those and other costs of regulating stability are justified by the costs spared by avoiding instability. Received wisdom would naturally assume that avoiding certain institutional collapses are worth any cost, but of course there must be some limits to that logic.To be clear, Canada’s regulatory model almost certainly appears to be a better-functioning one than that of many in its peer group, and the OSFI approach is gaining acceptance by many countries, particularly in emerging markets that are implementing cohesive regulatory systems for the first time, using the Canadian framework as a template. This does not, however, mean that Canada’s regulatory system cannot still be refined and improved. Suggestions for improvement include: the possibility of creating an industry-based collaboration committee — similar to the regulators’ Financial Institutions Supervisory Committee — that would monitor industry risk over time; the modernization of the Winding-up and Restructuring Act, conceived more than a century ago, to address the modern reality of immense and complex institutions of today, providing regulators the flexibility to resolve such entities when they become troubled; and the strengthening of board structures for large institutions, which remain much as they were in the 1980s, including the possibility of appointing permanent, full-time, independent directors and requirements for boards to better train directors and utilize outside expertise when warranted. Canada’s regulatory system is arguably one of the most effective in existence, but its success through the recent financial crisis is no guarantee that it will be sufficiently prepared for the next.