In this thesis, effects of economic crises after 1990 on the Turkish insurance sector are analyzed with special emphasis on 1994, 2001 and 2008 crises. In the first step, EGARCH model is used to measure the exchange rate uncertainty. Then, a time series model for the aggregate analysis and a panel data model for the disaggregate analysis which both include the estimated exchange rate uncertainty together with other macroeconomic and firm specific variables are set up. The results indicate that aggregate and disaggregate analyses suggest different variables in explaining the premium production which is used as a proxy for the performance of the insurance sector. Nevertheless, the common conclusion was that the growth of premium production decelerates during the crisis periods at a varying degree depending on the year of crisis. 2001 crisis is found to be the crisis which has the most detrimental impact on the Turkish insurance sector. On the other hand, effects of the 2008 crisis are found to be relatively limited.

In life insurance contracts, actuaries generally value premiums using deterministic mortality rates and interest rates. They have ignored them stochastically in most of the studies. However it is known that neither interest rates nor mortality rates are constant. It is also known that companies may encounter insolvency problems such as ruin, so the ruin probability need to be added to the valuation of the life insurance contracts process. Insurance companies should model their surplus processes to price some types of life insurance contracts and to see risk position. In this study, mortality rates and surplus processes are modeled and financial strength of companies are utilized when pricing life insurance contracts.