This study performs a time series analysis to explore the effects of property casualty insurance underwriting cycles on stock and mutual insurers' asset risk taking. It is well documented that underwriting costs and insolvency risks faced by insurers are greater in hard markets while lower in soft markets. To achieve optimal risk portfolios, insurers may take on more asset risks in soft markets and discharge them in hard markets. Moreover, we expect stock companies would be more reactive to underwriting cycles than are mutual companies given greater risk-taking capacity and better managerial-incentive-control mechanism of the stock companies. Our result confirms these conjectures. While stock companies are found actively responding to the underwriting cycle, mutual companies appear to be indolent. Another interesting finding is that property casualty insurers, both mutual and stock companies, do not actively respond to capital market signals.

This paper explores insurance as a source of financial system vulnerability. It provides a brief overview of the insurance industry and reviews the risks it faces, as well as several recent failures of insurance companies that had systemic implications. Assimilation of banking-type activities by life insurers appears to be the key systemic vulnerability. Building on this experience and the experience gained under the FSAP, the paper proposes key indicators that should be compiled and used for surveillance of financial soundness of insurance companies and the insurance sector as a whole.

Over the last decade, stress testing has become a central aspect of the Fund’s bilateral and multilateral surveillance work. Recently, more emphasis has also been placed on the role of insurance for financial stability analysis. This paper reviews the current state of system-wide solvency stress tests for insurance based on a comparative review of national practices and the experiences from Fund’s FSAP program with the aim of providing practical guidelines for the coherent and consistent implementation of such exercises. The paper also offers recommendations on improving the current insurance stress testing approaches and presentation of results.

Over the past two decades, the United States has successfully deregulated prices and restrictions on most previously-regulated industries, including airlines, trucking, railroads, telecommunications, and banking. Only a few industries remain regulated, the largest being the property-liability insurance business. In light of recent sweeping financial modernization legislation in other sectors of the insurance industry, this timely volume examines the basis for continued regulation of rates and forms of the U.S. property-liability insurance market. The book focuses on private passenger automobile insurance—the most important personal line of property-liability coverage, with annual premiums of about $120 billion. The authors analyze five state case studies: California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey—three of the most heavily regulated states—as well as Illinois, which has been deregulated for about 30 years, and South Carolina, which began to deregulate in 1997. The study also includes an econometric analysis based on all fifty states over a 25-year period that gauges the impact of regulation on insurance price levels, price volatility, and the proportion of automobiles insured in residual markets. The authors conclude that regulation does not significantly reduce long-run prices for consumers, and generally limits availability of coverage, reduces the quality and variety of services available in the market, inhibits productivity growth, and increases price volatility. Contributors include Dwight Jaffee (University of California, Berkeley), Thomas Russell (Santa Clara University ), Laureen Regan (Temple University), Sharon Tennyson (Cornell University), Mary Weiss (Temple University), John Worrall (Rutgers University), Stephen D'Arcy (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Martin Grace (Georgia State University), Robert Klein (Georgia State University), Richard Phillips (Georgia State University), Georges Dionne (University of Montreal), and Richard Butler (Brigham Young University).

List of members for the years 1914-20 are included in v. 1-7, after which they are continued in the Year book of the society, begun in 1922.

"A rare blend of a well-organized, comprehensive guide to portfolio management and a deep, cutting-edge treatment of the key topics by distinguished authors who have all practiced what they preach. The subtitle, A Dynamic Process, points to the fresh, modern ideas that sparkle throughout this new edition. Just reading Peter Bernstein's thoughtful Foreword can move you forward in your thinking about this critical subject." —Martin L. Leibowitz, Morgan Stanley "Managing Investment Portfolios remains the definitive volume in explaining investment management as a process, providing organization and structure to a complex, multipart set of concepts and procedures. Anyone involved in the management of portfolios will benefit from a careful reading of this new edition." —Charles P. Jones, CFA, Edwin Gill Professor of Finance, College of Management, North Carolina State University