This master thesis focuses on market research of the insurance product "Child Life Insurance", both from the perspective of the offers of insurance companies and from the point of view of demand for the product. This product is primarily used to ensure child protection in the event of death or injury of one or both parents as well as future financial security for the child when they reach the age of majority or more. In the most extensive part of my thesis I decided to examine in detail the range of market insurance products and also the interest of addressed people who are either involved in this product, or might have not heard of it yet. In conclusion, I compared the selected insurance products on a model example.

The life insurance business is currently going through a lot of changes. The turmoil in stock markets during the last years has made regulators realize that there is a greater need for risk management and solvency supervision in the business. Denmark was one of the first countries in Europe to react to this and in 2001 the Danish FSA implemented a stress test called the Traffic Lights System. This is a tool to measure various risks in different scenarios for financial institutions. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the effects of imposing a Danish style stress test on the Swedish life insurance market. In order to analyze the various effects of this stress test a theoretical framework consisting of fixed income securities and interest rate theory have been applied, since one of the largest risk a life insurer faces is the interest rate risk. Due to the fact that the Danish stress test is not fully applicable on the Swedish market, the authors created a model based on the Danish test to analyze Swedish life insurers. The model estimates the financial risks a life insurer faces. Analyzing the results based on the model, the authors found that three out of seven life insurers in the sample had solvency problems to various extend. The authors conclude that a great part of financial risks within life insurers can be reduced by reallocating equity holding to bonds and by duration matching between assets and liabilities. The authors also conclude that Swedish life insurers are in better financial shape today than their Danish counterparts were in 2001, which is why less dramatic effect is to be expected on the Swedish financial markets as a result of imposing the stress test.

The Financial Crisis of 2008 not only impacted Wall Street but also the finance and insurance sectors in Taiwan. The significance of this financial downturn was such that even one of the largest and the most time-honored ¡§A¡¨ International Group could not escape hardship. The firm in question was a recipient of U.S. financial bailout by funding by the U.S. government. Due to the need to repay the loan, the ¡§N¡¨ Taiwan Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the U.S. ¡§A¡¨ International Group faced a major threat to its very existence: complete liquidation by the ¡§A¡¨ International Group. The parent ¡§A¡¨ International Group made the irrevocable decision to sell the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company, as the only means by which a portion of the bailout loan could be covered. The impact of this decision was immediately felt in Taiwan. But the sale process nearly three years and finalized as a merger with a local investment firm. Considerable organizational change occurred within the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company post-merger. It continued throughout the acquisitions period of the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company by other entities. Through in-depth interviews with different levels of employees and actual customers of the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company, the study analyzed how transformational leadership formed, and then actuated the organizational change which was to take place. In addition, this study offers a clear understanding of the connection between organizational change and overall performance by individual cases-by-case basis. The ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company faced a three-year reversal-of-fortunes during the merger period. The company experienced many crises, including a collapse of productivity, immeasurable financial losses and a loss of market share as a main insurance provider in the lucrative Taiwan market. After the eventual sale, the company¡¦s case settled down and a newly appointed CEO who came from an investment bank and lead the organizational change, announced future directions and new operational strategies. By implementing numerous plans in all key areas of the company, business production rose 283% within the subsequent six months, and regained the ¡§Top 3 Spot¡¨ in Taiwan¡¦s competitive insurance marketplace. This study is based on the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company. A transformational model is presented which originated from research on related business materials and in-depth interviews. Furthermore, the leadership is examined regarding how organizational change was affected, how leadership penetrated the entire organizational structure, and how it lead to a rapid transformation resulting in substantial benefit through a singular vision. It is hoped that this study will provide some practical strategies and valuable experiences of the role of transformational management during a time of financial calamity.

This study is to investigate the factors for successful training programs in the life insurance industry. From the aspects of curriculum design, instructors¡¦ arrangements, and trainers¡¦ self-evaluation on their efforts in the training program, this study analyzed the trained and on-schedule promoted trainers to understand how much the trainers identify with the program arrangements. This study further pointed out that, on the premise of the same instructors and curriculum, the trainees¡¦ quality and how their supervisors do the mentoring determine if the training program will succeed. This study used the survey and randomly chose 180 trainees to be the research participants, with 143 valid responses. This study concludes some trainees¡¦ and their supervisors¡¦ qualities that tend to generate the training success. The qualities will be used as some referential indicators for recruitment and adjusting curriculum in the future.

The domestic life insurance industry at present is in the steep competition situation. With the fund accumulated rapidly, which investment strategy the life insurance company should take is very important. Law of Insurance 146th puts the restriction on the investment upper limit of the life insurance company. This research will discuss the influence of this investment restriction on life insurance companies¡¦ asset allocation by the samples of Cathay Life Insurance and Shin Kong Life Insurance, and also evaluate the performances of these two life insurance companies. Moreover, under the investment restriction, this research compares the investment rates of return between the optimal portfolios by different portfolio performance measures and the actual portfolios of the two life insurance companies and also shows that which portfolio performance measure is more suitable for life insurance companies to contribute to the decision-making of the life insurance companies about asset allocation. This research utilizes the Efficient Frontier that is inferred from the Markowitz¡¦s portfolio selection model to apply on the Sharpe measure and the IRp measure to achieve the research¡¦s goal mentioned above. The conclusions of this research are as follows: 1. Evaluated by the Sharpe measure, whether there is the investment restriction or not, the difference is small¡FEvaluated by the IRp measure, then there is the higher expected rate of return and better diversification with no investment restriction. 2.The actual rates of return of Cathay Life Insurance and Shin Kong Life Insurance are below the expected rates of returns of their portfolio evaluated be the Sharpe measure and the IRp measure. Moreover, This two measures show that Cathay Life Insurance has the better investment performance then Shin Kong Life Insurance. 3. Under the investment restriction, the differences between the expected rates of return of the optimal portfolio whether by the Sharpe measure or the IRp measure and the investment rates of return of the actual portfolio of these two companies are caused by the influence of the macro economy. 4. If there is no investment restriction, the optimal portfolio of the IRp measure has the better diversification that fits the conservative character of the life insurance companies.

<p>The life insurance business is currently going through a lot of changes. The turmoil in stock markets during the last years has made regulators realize that there is a greater need for risk management and solvency supervision in the business. Denmark was one of the first countries in Europe to react to this and in 2001 the Danish FSA implemented a stress test called the Traffic Lights System. This is a tool to measure various risks in different scenarios for financial institutions.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the effects of imposing a Danish style stress test on the Swedish life insurance market. In order to analyze the various effects of this stress test a theoretical framework consisting of fixed income securities and interest rate theory have been applied, since one of the largest risk a life insurer faces is the interest rate risk. Due to the fact that the Danish stress test is not fully applicable on the Swedish market, the authors created a model based on the Danish test to analyze Swedish life insurers. The model estimates the financial risks a life insurer faces. Analyzing the results based on the model, the authors found that three out of seven life insurers in the sample had solvency problems to various extend.</p><p>The authors conclude that a great part of financial risks within life insurers can be reduced by reallocating equity holding to bonds and by duration matching between assets and liabilities. The authors also conclude that Swedish life insurers are in better financial shape today than their Danish counterparts were in 2001, which is why less dramatic effect is to be expected on the Swedish financial markets as a result of imposing the stress test.</p>

本文採用行政院衛生署國民健康局中老年綜合調查研究中，由家庭計畫研究所提出的「台灣地區中老年身心社會生活狀況長期追蹤調查－長期研究第四次調查」，來分析遺贈動機與持有壽險之相關性。文中利用1999年53歲以上中老年人樣本，以兩階段二元邏輯斯特迴歸模型來估計；第一階段先估計其遺贈的機率，第二階段再輔以其他相關變數對持有壽險作迴歸。 實證結果顯示當受訪者留下遺產的機率或已分家產的機率愈高，持有壽險的機率就會相對降低，且有顯著影響，這是因為東方社會父母會在子女需要時給予適時的幫助，子女也大部分會孝順父母，因此不需要以遺贈去購買子女的關懷，也就是利他性遺贈動機使然。 其他如有伴侶的受訪者較不會去持有壽險；對子女關心滿意的程度對持有壽險有負向且顯著的影響（非全部迴歸式）；子女數則對持有壽險有正向且顯著的影響；有無自有房舍、有無第二屋、有無金融資產、財務狀況四變數對於持有壽險皆有正向且顯著的影響（非全部迴歸式）；從事公職對於持有壽險有負向且非常顯著的影響；有無公保與有無勞保兩變數對持有壽險有負向且顯著的影響（非全部迴歸式）；教育年限對持有壽險有正向且顯著的影響（非全部迴歸式）；年齡則對持有壽險有負向且顯著的影響（非全部迴歸式）。 / This thesis analyses the relationship of bequest motives and life insurance ownership by the use of the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Middle Aged and Elderly in Taiwan conducted by the Center for Population and Health Survey Research, Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, Taiwan. We use two stage binary logistic model and samples above 53 years old in 1999 to regress. In the first stage we estimate the probability of leaving bequest or division; in the second one we use this probability and other related variables to regress on the variable of life insurance ownership. The results show that the higher the probability of leaving bequest or division, the lower the probability of life insurance ownership. The effect is negative and significant. This is because parents help their children when they are in need, and children are always filial to their parents in the east. Thus there is no need to leave bequest to purchase attention from their children. This is so called “altruistic bequest motive.” Other variables like having a spouse, satisfaction with attention from their children, public employment, government insurance for public servants, labor insurance and age have negative and significant effects on life insurance ownership. The number of children, having their own house, second house, financial assets, financial condition and education have positive and significant effects on life insurance ownership. Other variables like having a spouse, satisfaction with attention from their children, public employment, government insurance for public servants, labor insurance and age have negative and significant effects on life insurance ownership. The number of children, having their own house, second house, financial assets, financial condition and education have positive and significant effects on life insurance ownership.

This is a multi-essay dissertation in the area of dynamic models of the insurance markets. I study issues in insurance markets by examining individual behavior and industry performance in dynamic settings. My first essay studies household life insurance demand and saving decisions by applying a heterogeneous-agent life cycle model with wage shocks and mortality shocks. This essay proposes the most important determinants of household life insurance demand, and shows the joint decision of life insurance purchase between couples. My second essay focuses on the property-liability insurance market, and aims to study the impact of one catastrophe event on an insurer’s underwritings and capital raising strategy. The two-period cash flow model is built to also explore what kind of insurers can benefit from catastrophic risk underwritings. My third essay extends the second essay by incorporating a dynamic cash flow model with a series of loss shocks. I find the dynamic interaction between the insurer’s balance sheet and its capital rationing resulting from loss shocks. The model generates a non-cyclical behavior of output changes in the insurance market, and this suggests the current asymmetric, unpredictable and random underwriting cycles are temporary responses to loss shocks.

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Assignment (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.