The effect of micro-insurance on the financial performance of insurance companies in Taiwan

Abstract

As development of economic a lot of environmental and social problems have come to pass According to the survey of Directorate-General of Accounting and Statistics the number of people living in poverty in Taiwan has exceeded 700 000 in 2013 It is obvious that government policies have not worked Besides social insurance systems are facing bankruptcy problem For sustainable development micro-insurance builds a sound social safety net by public-private partnership The feature of micro-insurance may aggravate adverse selection for insurance company However more and more insurance companies in Taiwan are still willing to participate in the micro-insurance market Therefore the goal of this study is to explore the effect of micro-insurance on the financial performance of insurance companies in Taiwan In recent years sustainable development has become the major project for all countries so people have gradually paid their attention to corporate social responsibility Micro-insurance is not only a kind of green insurance but also the main way for insurance companies to achieve CSR The literature is to explore the impact of corporate social responsibility on the financial performance of companies Regardless of theorey or empirical there is no consistent conclusion The possible reason is that the literature include in too many industries It cause the impact of CSR on the financial performance of companies is not clear Secondly the literature is to explore the effect of micro-insurance on insurance companies The research only explores premium income and does not consider financial performance indicators In this study we use data about 14 property insurance companies and 16 life insurance companies from 2009 to 2018 Our empirical results indicate that insurance companies which participate in the micro-insurance market have a positive impact on ROA Likewise there is consistent conclusion in ROE The empirical results reveal that insurance companies can benefit from participating in the micro-insurance market The conclusions reached in the literature indicate that insurance companies which participate in the micro-insurance market have a nagative impact on premium income However the benefits of insurance companies engaging in CSR such as price premiums and reputation effect would overwhelm the negative factors in operation micro-insurance Therefore insurance companies have incentives to participate in the micro-insurance market

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Chang-Ching Lin (Supervisor)