RT Conference Proceedings
T1 Competition, Efficiency and Soundness in European Life Insurance Markets
A1 Rubio-Misas, María
A1 Cummins, J. David
A1 Vencappa, Dev
K1 Seguros de vida
AB This paper provides cross-country evidence on the association between soundness and competition in the life insurance industry where competition is measured by the Boone indicator. We analyze 10 European Union (EU) life insurance markets over the post-deregulation period 1999-2011. The results indicate that competition increases the soundness of the EU life insurance markets but incentivizes EU life insurers to hold less capital. Since the Boone indicator measures competition based on the reallocation of profits from inefficient insurers to efficient ones, our results suggest that efficiency is the mechanism through which competition contributes to insurer solvency. The soundness-enhancing effect of competition is greater for weak insurers than for healthy ones. Results show that competition on average decreased in the years after the financial crisis
YR 2014
FD 2014-09-18
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10630/8052
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10630/8052
LA eng
NO Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucia Tech.                 Carefin-Bocconi Centre for Applied Research in Finance
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 19 ene 2026