IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gla/glaewp/2020_06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Informational Content of Default Risk in UK Insurance Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Mario Cerrato
  • Paolo Coccorese
  • Xuan Zhang

Abstract

“Historically, insurers have made money in two ways – returning an underwriting profit and investing premiums and making money on the investment returns.” By Nick Kitchen, Head of Technical Casualty and Motor Lines, Zurich Insurance plc. In this paper, we use a novel data-set of UK public and non-public insurance companies for the period 1985-2014 in order to investigate the empirical relationship between firms’ specific characteristics and default risk. We employ a portfolio approach, and after splitting firms’ returns into underwriting and investment returns, we find evidence that default risk is closely related to size and reinsurance activities, especially for small size firms, and that such firms are much less risky than large firms and earn the highest return when their default risk is low. Some policy implications are also provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Mario Cerrato & Paolo Coccorese & Xuan Zhang, 2020. "The Informational Content of Default Risk in UK Insurance Firms," Working Papers 2020_06, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
  • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2020_06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_712397_smxx.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duffie, Darrell & Saita, Leandro & Wang, Ke, 2007. "Multi-period corporate default prediction with stochastic covariates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 635-665, March.
    2. Lorenzo Garlappi & Hong Yan, 2011. "Financial Distress and the Cross‐section of Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 789-822, June.
    3. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Cerrato, Mario & Zhang, Xuan, 2017. "Analysing the determinants of insolvency risk for general insurance firms in the UK," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 107-122.
    4. Duan, Jin-Chuan & Sun, Jie & Wang, Tao, 2012. "Multiperiod corporate default prediction—A forward intensity approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 170(1), pages 191-209.
    5. Andrews, Donald W K, 1991. "Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 817-858, May.
    6. Duffie, Darrell & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1999. "Modeling Term Structures of Defaultable Bonds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(4), pages 687-720.
    7. Aunon-Nerin, Daniel & Ehling, Paul, 2008. "Why firms purchase property insurance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 298-312, December.
    8. Mike Adams & Bruce Burton & Philip Hardwick, 2003. "The Determinants of Credit Ratings in the United Kingdom Insurance Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3-4), pages 539-572.
    9. 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.
    10. Raja Bouzluita & Arthur J. Young, 1998. "A Probit Analysis of Best Ratings," Journal of Insurance Issues, Western Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 23-34.
    11. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1995. "A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 789-819, July.
    12. Harrington, Scott E. & Niehaus, Greg, 2003. "Capital, corporate income taxes, and catastrophe insurance," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 365-389, October.
    13. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1991. "The Theory of Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 297-355, March.
    14. Maurice Kugler & Reza Ofoghi, 2005. "Does Insurance Promote Economic Growth? Evidence from the UK," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2005 8, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    15. Mike Adams & Bruce Burton & Philip Hardwick, 2003. "The Determinants of Credit Ratings in the United Kingdom Insurance Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3‐4), pages 539-572, April.
    16. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    17. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:831-868 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Tim Adam & Sudipto Dasgupta & Sheridan Titman, 2007. "Financial Constraints, Competition, and Hedging in Industry Equilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2445-2473, October.
    19. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    20. Pasiouras, Fotios & Gaganis, Chrysovalantis, 2013. "Regulations and soundness of insurance firms: International evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 632-642.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Mario Cerrato & Xuan Zhang, 2016. "Analysing the Determinants of Credit Risk for General Insurance Firms in the UK," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1591, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Cerrato, Mario & Zhang, Xuan, 2017. "Analysing the determinants of insolvency risk for general insurance firms in the UK," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 107-122.
    3. 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.
    4. Ignacio Moreno & Purificación Parrado‐Martínez & Antonio Trujillo‐Ponce, 2020. "Economic crisis and determinants of solvency in the insurance sector: new evidence from Spain," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(3), pages 2965-2994, September.
    5. Patrycja Chodnicka -Jaworska & Piotr Jaworski, 2019. "Insurance Companies – What Determinates Their Credit Ratings," Faculty of Management Working Paper Series 52019, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management.
    6. Ming Fang & Rui Zhong, 2004. "Default Risk, Firm's Characteristics, and Risk Shifting," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2461, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Mar 2005.
    7. Qing Bai & Lu Zhu, 2018. "The Effects of Industry Specific and Local Economic Factors on Credit Default Swap Spreads: Evidence from REITs," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 293-321, December.
    8. Deniz Anginer & Çelim Yıldızhan, 2018. "Is There a Distress Risk Anomaly? Pricing of Systematic Default Risk in the Cross-section of Equity Returns [The risk-adjusted cost of financial distress]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 633-660.
    9. Yeh, Chung-Ying & Hsu, Junming & Wang, Kai-Li & Lin, Che-Hui, 2015. "Explaining the default risk anomaly by the two-beta model," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 16-33.
    10. Han-Hsing Lee, 2020. "Distress risk, product market competition, and corporate bond yield spreads," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1093-1135, October.
    11. Gregory Connor & Lisa R. Goldberg & Robert A. Korajczyk, 2010. "Portfolio Risk Analysis," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9224.
    12. Ming Fang & Rui Zhong, 2004. "Default Risk, Firm's Characteristics, and Risk Shifting," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2461, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Mar 2005.
    13. Laura Chiaramonte & Alberto Dreassi & Andrea Paltrinieri & Stefano Piserà, 2020. "Sustainability Practices and Stability in the Insurance Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-25, July.
    14. Aleksejs Krecetovs & Pasquale Della Corte, 2016. "Macro uncertainty and currency premia," 2016 Meeting Papers 624, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    16. Yenn-Ru Chen & Carl R. Chen & Chih-Kang Chu, 2014. "The Effect of Executive Stock Options on Corporate Innovative Activities," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(2), pages 271-290, June.
    17. Ferdinand Dreher & Johannes Gräb & Thomas Kostka, 2020. "From carry trades to curvy trades," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 758-780, March.
    18. Rösch, Daniel & Scheule, Harald, 2009. "The Empirical Relation between Credit Quality, Recovery and Correlation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-418, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    19. Giesecke, Kay & Longstaff, Francis A. & Schaefer, Stephen & Strebulaev, Ilya, 2011. "Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 233-250.
    20. Byrne, Joseph P. & Ibrahim, Boulis Maher & Sakemoto, Ryuta, 2018. "Common information in carry trade risk factors," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 37-47.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:gla:glaewp:2020_06. 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: Business School Research Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpglauk.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.