This article investigates the relationship between product diversification and firm performance in the U.S. property-liability insurance industry using data over the 1994 through 2002 time period. Using various measures of product diversification and firm performance, we find that the extent of product diversification shares a complex and nonlinear relationship with firm performance. Our findings suggest that performance benefits associated with product diversification are contingent upon an insurer's degree of geographic diversification. Robustness tests using subsamples and market returns for public firms show consistent results. Copyright (c) The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2008.

Mirroring the trend in the broader marketplace, the global insurance industry is steadily moving toward increased liberalization and deregulation. This study seeks to develop the first empirical model that examines the importance of foreign market characteristics as they relate to the participation of international insurers in the non-life business of those countries. The analysis reveals that market structure is an important factor in determining whether international insurers participate in a given foreign market. In addition, for markets that are not competitive, removing trade barriers would significantly improve the desirability of those countries as host markets. The results also suggest that countries with higher gross domestic product tend to attract more involvement from international insurers. While this research focuses on the markets of industrialized countries, the findings will provide significant implications for those emerging markets that have not yet collected relevant data on a number of the variables included in this study. Copyright 2003 The Journal of Risk and Insurance.

This article tests the applicability of the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) hypothesis in the international nonlife insurance marketplace. We employ a panel data regression methodology that includes 23 nations (developed and developing countries) over the time period of 1996 to 2003. The results reveal that the interaction of market liberalization and market concentration shares a complex relationship with market profitability. Our results show that the expectations associated with the SCP hypothesis are supported when the levels of liberalization are low. However, for markets that are highly liberalized the presence of foreign insurers significantly alters the dynamics of nonlife insurance markets. Copyright (c) The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2008.

Traditional shareholding patterns in Japan have experienced significant change beginning in the early 1990s. Since that time, foreign institutional shareholding has increased significantly largely at the expense of domestic financial institution ownership. This article examines whether these changes in ownership patterns share a relationship with insurer performance in the non‐life insurance market. Using data from 1992 to 2005, we assess performance in terms of efficiency measures using data envelopment analyses (DEA) techniques. Our results show that higher levels of domestic financial institution ownership in Japan are associated with insurer inefficiency. Relative to that relationship, the foreign ownership–insurer efficiency relationship is found to be positive. Additionally, we find that the disparity between those relationships has become more acute since 2001 when the Japanese non‐life insurance market experienced significant consolidation.

Recent trends toward liberalization and deregulation have sparked significant interest in the topic of international insurers' participation in foreign markets. This research develops a profile of foreign national market characteristics that attract international life insurer participation and additionally, empirically assesses the value that international participation has to the host market. Characteristics that are found to be statistically significant with respect to international participation include high levels of trade liberalization and/or low insurer market share concentration, high levels of national wealth, and high levels of government expenditure on social security retirement benefits. With respect to the benefits such participation provides, we see that the presence of international life insurers share positive relationships with both life insurance consumption and the magnitude of the role life insurance plays within the broader national economy of those host markets.