IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedmsr/505.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shadow Insurance

Author

Listed:
  • Ralph S. J. Koijen
  • Motohiro Yogo

Abstract

Liabilities ceded by life insurers to shadow reinsurers (i.e., affiliated and less regulated off-balance-sheet entities) grew from $11 billion in 2002 to $364 billion in 2012. Life insurers using shadow insurance, which capture half of the market share, ceded 25 cents of every dollar insured to shadow reinsurers in 2012, up from 2 cents in 2002. Our adjustment for shadow insurance reduces risk-based capital by 53 percentage points (or 3 rating notches) and raises default probabilities by a factor of 3.5. We develop a structural model of the life insurance industry and estimate the impact of current policy proposals to contain or eliminate shadow insurance. In the counterfactual without shadow insurance, the average company currently using shadow insurance would raise its price by 12 percent, and annual life insurance underwritten would fall by 11 percent for the industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Ralph S. J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2014. "Shadow Insurance," Staff Report 505, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr505.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ralph S. J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2015. "The Cost of Financial Frictions for Life Insurers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 445-475, January.
    2. Ralph S.J. Koijen & Stijn Nieuwerburgh & Motohiro Yogo, 2016. "Health and Mortality Delta: Assessing the Welfare Cost of Household Insurance Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 957-1010, April.
    3. Bo Becker & Victoria Ivashina, 2015. "Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1863-1902, October.
    4. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Paul Schrimpf, 2010. "Optimal Mandates and the Welfare Cost of Asymmetric Information: Evidence From the U.K. Annuity Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 1031-1092, May.
    5. Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky & Zoltan Pozsar, 2013. "Shadow banking," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Dec, pages 1-16.
      • Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky & Zoltan Pozsar, 2010. "Shadow banking," Staff Reports 458, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Acharya, Viral V. & Schnabl, Philipp & Suarez, Gustavo, 2013. "Securitization without risk transfer," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 515-536.
    7. Craig B. Merrill & Taylor D. Nadauld & René M. Stulz & Shane Sherlund, 2012. "Did Capital Requirements and Fair Value Accounting Spark Fire Sales in Distressed Mortgage-Backed Securities?," NBER Working Papers 18270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Motohiro Yogo & Ralph S.J. Koijen, 2009. "Optimal Health and Longevity Insurance," 2009 Meeting Papers 185, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Froot, Kenneth A., 2001. "The market for catastrophe risk: a clinical examination," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 529-571, May.
    10. Adiel, Ron, 1996. "Reinsurance and the management of regulatory ratios and taxes in the property--casualty insurance industry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-3), pages 207-240, October.
    11. Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft, 2012. "Shadow Banking Regulation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 99-140, October.
    12. Andrew Ellul & Chotibhak Jotikasthira & Christian T. Lundblad & Yihui Wang, 2012. "Is Historical Cost Accounting a Panacea? Market Stress, Incentive Distortions, and Gains Trading," FMG Discussion Papers dp701, Financial Markets Group.
    13. Froot, Kenneth A. & O'Connell, Paul G.J., 2008. "On the pricing of intermediated risks: Theory and application to catastrophe reinsurance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 69-85, January.
    14. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Taking the **Sock** out of FSOC
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2018-10-29 12:24:21
    2. A Primer on Securities Lending
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2016-11-07 19:49:47
    3. Too Big to Fail: MetLife v. FSOC
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2016-04-04 17:34:30

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Markus Behn & Rainer Haselmann & Vikrant Vig, 2022. "The Limits of Model‐Based Regulation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(3), pages 1635-1684, June.
    2. Mark Egan & Stefan Lewellen & Adi Sunderam, 2017. "The Cross Section of Bank Value," NBER Working Papers 23291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Puriya Abbassi & Falk Bräuning, 2018. "The pricing of FX forward contracts: micro evidence from banks’ dollar hedging," Working Papers 18-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    4. Matteo Benetton, 2017. "Lenders' Competition and Macro-prudential Regulation: A Model of the UK Mortgage Supermarket," 2017 Meeting Papers 1001, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Stefan Lewellen & Adi Sunderam & Mark Egan, 2017. "The Cross Section of Bank Value," 2017 Meeting Papers 1283, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Braun, Alexander & Ben Ammar, Semir & Eling, Martin, 2019. "Asset pricing and extreme event risk: Common factors in ILS fund returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 59-78.
    7. Shi Chen & Jyh-Horng Lin & Wenyu Yao & Fu-Wei Huang, 2019. "CEO Overconfidence and Shadow-Banking Life Insurer Performance Under Government Purchases of Distressed Assets," Risks, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ralph S.J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2017. "Risk of Life Insurers: Recent Trends and Transmission Mechanisms," NBER Working Papers 23365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ralph S.J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2022. "The Fragility of Market Risk Insurance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 815-862, April.
    3. Joseph Briggs & Christopher Tonetti, 2019. "Risky Insurance: Insurance Portfolio Choice with Incomplete Markets," 2019 Meeting Papers 1388, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Kirti, Divya, 2024. "When gambling for resurrection is too risky," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. Craig B. Merrill & Taylor D. Nadauld & Philip E. Strahan, 2019. "Final Demand for Structured Finance Securities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 390-412, January.
    6. Greg Niehaus, 2023. "Personal taxes, cost of insurer equity capital, and the case of offshore hedge fund reinsurers," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(2), pages 249-281, June.
    7. Jansson, Walter, 2021. "Revisiting Subprime Pricing Irrationality During the Global Financial Crisis," Journal of Financial Crises, Yale Program on Financial Stability (YPFS), vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, April.
    8. Daniel Covitz & Nellie Liang & Tobias Adrian, 2015. "Financial Stability Monitoring," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 357-395, December.
    9. Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft, 2012. "shadow banking: a review of the literature," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Chen, Xuanjuan & Sun, Zhenzhen & Yao, Tong & Yu, Tong, 2020. "Does operating risk affect portfolio risk? Evidence from insurers' securities holding," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    11. Upreti, Vineet & Adams, Mike, 2015. "The strategic role of reinsurance in the United Kingdom’s (UK) non-life insurance market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 206-219.
    12. Götze, Tobias & Gürtler, Marc, 2020. "Hard markets, hard times: On the inefficiency of the CAT bond market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    13. Tobias Adrian & Nellie Liang, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Financial Conditions, and Financial Stability," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(1), pages 73-131, January.
    14. Matteo Benetton, 2021. "Leverage Regulation and Market Structure: A Structural Model of the U.K. Mortgage Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 2997-3053, December.
    15. Bo Becker & Marcus M Opp & Farzad Saidi, 2022. "Regulatory Forbearance in the U.S. Insurance Industry: The Effects of Removing Capital Requirements for an Asset Class," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(12), pages 5438-5482.
    16. Bo Becker & Efraim Benmelech, 2021. "The Resilience of the U.S. Corporate Bond Market During Financial Crises," NBER Working Papers 28868, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Efing, Matthias, 2015. "Arbitraging the Basel securitization framework: Evidence from German ABS investment," Discussion Papers 40/2015, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2011. "Fire Sales in Finance and Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 29-48, Winter.
    19. Gibson, Rajna & Habib, Michel A. & Ziegler, Alexandre, 2014. "Reinsurance or securitization: The case of natural catastrophe risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 79-100.
    20. Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft, 2012. "Shadow Banking Regulation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 99-140, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Special purpose vehicles; Life insurance industry; Capital regulation; Reinsurance; Regulatory arbitrage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Shadow Insurance (ECTA 2016) in ReplicationWiki

    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:fip:fedmsr:505. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.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.