Finding the right one: The determinants of general insurers profitability

• Main Author: Datu, Niño
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Insurance
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5727
• Institution: De La Salle University

Underwriting and investment operations of insurance companies have become the important tools of the actuaries in formulating a financial model. The essential part in carrying out the analysis is to investigate the most significant factors affecting insurers performance. The current study examined the association between Insurer-specific indicators and profitability in Philippine non-life insurance market utilizing the panel data analysis. The panel data analysis helped to simultaneously control for the presence of heteroscedasticity and serial correlation in the sample data and tested the research hypotheses. The sample for this study included seventy one (71) non-life insurers over the period of 2008 through 2012 their Return on Assets (ROA) and operating ratio was used for profitability. Constructs are chosen on the basis of relevant theory and literature. Return on assets is predicted to be positively significantly correlated with firm size, debt to equity ratio, market share, diversification, and regulatory cost. On the other hand, underwriting risk, reinsurance utilization and financial leverage are anticipated to be negatively significantly correlated. Meanwhile, firm size, debt to equity ratio, market share, diversification, regulatory costs are forecasted to be inversely significantly correlated with the operating ratio as proxy of profitability. However, there is a direct significant correlation expectation between operating ratio and underwriting risk, reinsurance utilization and financial leverage. The study contributed valuable insights on the performance of general insurers operations, and its conclusion could be of interest and relevance to domestic insurers, reinsurers, regulatory body, academicians, and other interested parties such as investors and policyholders.