Christian Biener

The Performance of Microinsurance Programs: A Data Envelopment Analysis

The purpose of this research is to measure the performance of microinsurance programs using data envelopment analysis and to derive implications for the viable provision of microinsurance products. This is a worthwhile exercise given the significant limitations of the existing performance measures used in the microinsurance industry. A single and simple to interpret performance measure can overcome these limitations and provide a sophisticated tool for performance measurement within a multidimensional framework. Moreover, this technique can incorporate the important social function that microinsurers fulfill and provide powerful managerial implications. We illustrate the capabilities of data envelopment analysis using a sample of 20 microinsurance programs and recent innovations from the efficiency literature, such as the bootstrapping of efficiency scores and a truncated regression analysis of efficiency determinants.

Organization and efficiency in the international insurance industry: A cross-frontier analysis

This paper employs cross-frontier analysis, an innovative tool based on data envelopment analysis, to provide new insight into the relationship between organization and efficiency in international insurance markets. We are the first to empirically test the expense preference hypothesis and the efficient structure hypothesis in a large cross-country study. For this purpose, we consider 23,807 firm-years for 21 countries from northern America and the European Union—a dataset not previously analyzed in this context. We find evidence for the efficient structure hypothesis in selected market segments, but we find no evidence for the expense preference hypothesis. Our results provide insight into the competitiveness of stock and mutual insurers from different countries. At the country level, the results can be used to compare different insurance markets. Our findings are especially interesting for the strategic management of insurance companies as well as for regulators and boards of national insurance associations.

The Determinants of Efficiency and Productivity in the Swiss Insurance Industry

Using state-of-the-art frontier efficiency methodologies, we study the efficiency and productivity of Swiss insurance companies in the life, property/casualty, and reinsurance sectors from 1997–2013. In this context, we provide the first empirical analysis of internationalization strategies of insurance companies, a topic of high interest in the business and economics literature, but one that has to date not been the focus of efficiency studies in the insurance sector. We find that productivity and efficiency have improved with regard to property/casualty and reinsurance. In the case of life insurance, productivity and efficiency diminished; however, life insurance firms with higher levels of international business exhibit superior efficiency levels. We observe that diversification strategies directed to the European market are more beneficial compared to those targeting markets outside of Europe.

Regulation in Microinsurance Markets: Principles, Practice, and Directions for Future Development

Regulation of any market can either promote or impede its development, thus affecting social welfare. In this paper, we are concerned with the impact of regulation in microinsurance markets. We evaluate existing and potential regulatory mechanisms with regard to its underlying economic rationale, and offer recommendations intended to enhance support and minimize barriers for microinsurance market development. Specifically, we recommend avoiding incentives for regulatory arbitrage; responding to the characteristics of the microinsurance market, including licensing, capital, reinsurance, and distribution systems; enhancing the market through financial literacy initiatives; and providing support in the form of data collection and management training.

Contract Nonperformance Risk and Ambiguity in Insurance Markets

Insurance contract nonperformance relates to situations when valid claims are not paid by the insurer. We extend probabilistic insurance models to allow for such nonperformance risk as well as ambiguity regarding nonperformance and loss probabilities. We empirically test theoretical predictions from our model within a field lab experiment in a low-income setting. This is a persuasive context, since especially in emerging and poorly regulated markets there is a higher chance of contract nonperformance. In line with our predictions, insurance demand decreases by 17 percentage points in the presence of contract nonperformance risk and is reduced by a further 14 percentage points when contract nonperformance risk is ambiguous. It also seems that ambiguity does not easily disappear with experience. The results have implications for both industrialized and developing insurance markets.

The Roles of Industry Idiosyncrasy, Cost Efficiency, and Risk in Internationalization: Evidence from the Insurance Industry

A central matter of dispute in the internationalization literature is the existence and shape of a systematic relationship between the degree of internationalization and firm performance (I-P relationship). Considering the global insurance industry, we show that the I-P relationship depends on the industry’s idiosyncrasies and on the geographical scope of internationalization. The life insurance industry’s idiosyncrasies lead to relatively high liability of foreignness that compromise cost efficiency, and relatively low risk reduction benefits of globalization. Therefore, we observe an overall negative impact of globalization on life insurers’ performance. However, the nonlife insurance industry’s idiosyncrasies render this relationship insignificant.