IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jrinsu/v82y2015i4p793-822.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On Lawsuits, Corporate Governance, and Directors' and Officers' Liability Insurance

Author

Listed:
  • Stuart L. Gillan
  • Christine A. Panasian

Abstract

type="main" xml:lang="en"> We examine whether information about firms' directors' and officers' (D&O) liability insurance coverage provides insights into the likelihood of shareholder lawsuits. Using Canadian firms, we find evidence that firms with D&O insurance coverage are more likely to be sued and that the likelihood of litigation increases with increased coverage. These findings are consistent with managerial opportunism or moral hazard related to the insurance purchase decision. We also find that higher premiums are associated with the likelihood of litigation, indicating that insurers price this behavior. Taken together, the findings suggest that coverage and premium levels have the potential to convey information about lawsuit likelihood, and a firm's governance quality, to the marketplace.

Suggested Citation

  • Stuart L. Gillan & Christine A. Panasian, 2015. "On Lawsuits, Corporate Governance, and Directors' and Officers' Liability Insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 82(4), pages 793-822, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jrinsu:v:82:y:2015:i:4:p:793-822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chang, Shih-Chung & Ren, Yayuan & Yeh, Jason, 2018. "The role of information: When is Directors’ and Officers’ insurance value-added?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 189-197.
    2. Lai, Yi-Hsun & Tai, Vivian W., 2019. "Managerial overconfidence and directors' and officers' liability insurance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    3. Chia-Chung Chan & Yung-Ho Chang & Chia-wei Chen & Yuwei Wang, 2019. "Directors’ liability insurance and investment-cash flow sensitivity," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 43(1), pages 27-43, January.
    4. Liao, Tsai-Ling & Chuang, Hwei-Lin & Wang, Jo-Yu, 2022. "Directors' and officers’ liability insurance and the pricing of seasoned equity offerings," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 12-26.
    5. Weng, Tzu-Ching & Chen, Guang-Zheng & Chi, Hsin-Yi, 2017. "Effects of directors and officers liability insurance on accounting restatements," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 437-452.
    6. Li, Tianshi & Yang, Tina & Zhu, Jigao, 2022. "Directors’ and officers’ liability insurance: Evidence from independent directors’ voting," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    7. Wang, Di & Liu, Guangqiang & Xie, Linlin, 2023. "Can compulsory liability insurance reduce agency costs? Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Qu, Shawn, 2024. "Litigation risk and corporate philanthropy: A managerial perspective analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).
    9. Dain C. Donelson & Jennifer L. Glenn & Christopher G. Yust, 2022. "Is tax aggressiveness associated with tax litigation risk? Evidence from D&O Insurance," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 519-569, June.
    10. Sophie Wang, Qing & Lai, Shaojie & Pi, Shuwen & Anderson, Hamish, 2022. "Does directors' and officers' liability insurance induce empire building? Evidence from corporate labor investment," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Xia, Changyuan & Yang, Junjie & Yang, Zeng & Chan, Kam C., 2023. "Do directors with foreign experience increase the corporate demand for directors' and officers' liability insurance? Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    12. Kong, Xiaoran & Xu, Siping & Liu, Ming-Yu & Ho, Kung-Cheng, 2023. "Confucianism and D&O insurance demand of Chinese listed companies," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    13. Naaraayanan, S. Lakshmi & Nielsen, Kasper Meisner, 2021. "Does personal liability deter individuals from serving as independent directors?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 621-643.
    14. Huang, Rachel J. & Jeng, Vivian & Wang, Cheng-Wei & Yue, Jack C., 2021. "Does size and book-to-market contain intangible information about managerial incentives? Learning from corporate D&O insurance purchase," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    15. Rebel A. Cole & Travis Davidson & Hongxia Wang, 2021. "Why do bank holding companies purchase bank-owned life insurance?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 29-59, July.
    16. Dain C. Donelson & Justin J. Hopkins & Christopher G. Yust, 2018. "The cost of disclosure regulation: evidence from D&O insurance and nonmeritorious securities litigation," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 528-588, June.
    17. Li-Su Huang, 2022. "Directors and officers liability insurance and default risk," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 47(2), pages 375-408, April.
    18. Park, Min, 2018. "What drives corporate insurance demand? Evidence from directors' and officers' liability insurance in Korea," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 235-257.
    19. Su, Xuan-Qi, 2023. "Directors' and Officers' liability insurance and cross section of expected stock returns: A mispricing explanation," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jrinsu:v:82:y:2015:i:4:p:793-822. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ariaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.