When Insurers Go Bust

In the 1990s, large insurance companies failed in virtually every major market, prompting a fierce and ongoing debate about how to better protect policyholders. Drawing lessons from the failures of four insurance companies, When Insurers Go Bust dramatically advances this debate by arguing that the current approach to insurance regulation should be replaced with mechanisms that replicate the governance of non-financial firms. Rather than immediately addressing the minutiae of supervision, Guillaume Plantin and Jean-Charles Rochet first identify a fundamental economic rationale for supervising the solvency of insurance companies: policyholders are the "bankers" of insurance companies. But because policyholders are too dispersed to effectively monitor insurers, it might be efficient to delegate monitoring to an institution--a prudential authority. Applying recent developments in corporate finance theory and the economic theory of organizations, the authors describe in practical terms how such authorities could be created and given the incentives to behave exactly like bankers behave toward borrowers, as "tough" claimholders.

This book takes a comparative perspective of practice in the European Union, North America, Japan and Australasia, arguing that existing legal reforms to promote sustainable development are unlikely to be successful unless environmental policy can be diffused and embedded in the financial services sector. This sector plays a crucial role in creating the financial conditions that allow much economic development to proceed. Financial markets are already highly regulated in pursuance of various public policy objectives, and there is scope to adapt existing regulation to incorporate environmental aspects into the financial services sector. In terms of specific reforms, the book focuses on the role of corporate environmental reporting, economic instruments and liability rules to provide a proper context for engaging financial organisations with the environment, as well as reforms to the system of prudential regulation that currently governs this sector. Beyond the focus on the financial services sector, the book raises complex questions regarding the relationship between the state and market institutions in environmental policy, and will appeal to scholars from a wide range of disciplines interested in problems of environmental governance.

Insurance Economics brings together the economic analysis of decision making under risk, risk management and demand for insurance among individuals and corporations, objectives pursued and management tools used by insurance companies, the regulation of insurance, and the division of labor between private and social insurance. Appropriate both for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of economics, management, and finance, this text provides the background required to understand current research. Predictions derived from theoretical arguments are not merely stated, but also related to empirical evidence. Throughout the book, conclusions summarize key results, helping readers to check their knowledge and comprehension. Issues discussed include paradoxes in decision making under risk and attempts at their resolution, moral hazard and adverse selection including the possibility of a “death spiral”, and future challenges to both private and social insurance such as globalization and the availability of genetic information. This second edition has been extensively revised. Most importantly, substantial content has been added to represent the evolution of risk-related research. A new chapter, Insurance Demand II: Nontraditional Approaches, provides a timely addition in view of recent developments in risk theory and insurance. Previous discussions of Enterprise Risk Management, long-term care insurance, adverse selection, and moral hazard have all been updated. In an effort to expand the global reach of the text, evidence and research from the U.S. and China have also been added.

"Risk being its raw material, insurance has developed various techniques of valuation and risk transfer. Nowadays, these techniques - and first of all reinsurance, the favourite way of transferring risk- are entirely reassessed considering the development of Corporate Finance theory. Therefore, the approach retained here, originally for the actuarial course at Ensae, Paris may surprise some readers and students as it proposes a extended view of risk. We cover not only the mathematical aspects of Risk Management but also other fields relevant for Risk Management from economy or finance. We aim here at making bridges between all these fields through practical application to cat and life risk-management."--

Macroprudential policies, tools and supervision have become important since the last financial crisis. This book addresses general and methodological issues and provides a framework for the analysis of macroprudential policies and supervision in insurance. It focuses on policy related issues and global level aspects of macroprudential in insurance.