This book is an outcome of the research undertaken on impact of global financial crisis on Life Insurance industry in South India. Insurance in any economy is regarded as a pillar of growth for overall development of the economy. Volatile economic condition with recent financial crisis changed the competitive landscape in life insurance industry with a challenging future ahead in India.An examination of the effect of the crisis on Indian economy and savings pattern of people and priority for insurance is made. It contains a quantitative and objective assessment of how well the life insurers in India managed the global crisis in Madurai Division and at the National level. There is an analysis on the behaviour of policyholders' towards LIC and views towards global financial crisis and perceptions of the policyholders about the service rendered by the LIC of India using SERQUAL model.It is hope that the readers will be enlightened on the necessity for investing in life insurance during their earning period.It also offers some valuable insights to the branch managers of LIC to aggressively improve customer service standards and revamp distribution networks.

This special report assesses the impact of the crisis on the insurance sector and reviews policy responses within OECD countries.

Many people believed that insurance is regarded a shock absorber of the economy, then it might not be the sector that was affected by the current financial crisis. However, the collapse of America International Group (AIG) in 2008 has ignited a question of the link between the financial crisis and insurance industry. Although, there were several studies and papers of International Monetary Fund or Geneva Association of Insurance, etc' which discussed about the possible impacts of the financial crisis, rarely there had studies referring to the different roles of insurance in the economy. This thesis aimed to discover the impacts of the financial crisis on insurance sector regarding its various roles. Insurer play two roles in the economy: one as the financial player where it makes profit from the earned premium in the financial market and the other as its normal activity, insurance, which is related to the general economic stage. So the insurance industry had to suffer during the period of crisis in both two ways. In spite of the limited data, this report believes to give the readers an overview of insurers' condition through the period of financial crisis after outlining the major impacts and studying the several specific cases. The impacts from financial markets were due to the collapse of the securities market and the loss on subprime mortgage. In general economic stage, insurance companies felt the heat of the crisis through the shrinkage of demand in insurance products and the rise of insurance fraud. Moreover, it showed that the consequences heavily depended on the connection between the insurers with the financial world and the development of the market where insurance companies operate. That is why Vietnam represents the special case which still enjoys the growth rate of 20-30% per year. In addition, life insurance was affected much more than non-life insurance because of its extensive investment portfolio. By studying three famous case studies (AIG, ING Group and Bao Viet Holdings), the thesis strengthens the points which were made in the theoretical part. It is important to notice that not all of the mentioned symptoms happened to every insurance company. The impacts on insurance sector depended on the link between the company and financial market, the development level of the industry, the company's investment portfolio and the operation's areas. The company could be hit by its financial activities like AIG or by the regions it operated like ING Insurance or by the general economic recession like Bao Viet Holdings. The slash of AIG's stock and the sharp decline of financial activities proved that financial department was the reason for all the mess of ING. Meanwhile, ING Insurance's loss was resulted from its activities in the US, the origin of the financial crisis, following was Europe. Finally, Bao Viet Holdings was the typically insurance company which only had insurance activities in one developing country, Vietnam, an immature insurance market. It still enjoyed the development of 10% in life insurance and 20% in non-life insurance. The real reason for this surprising fact was the lack of relationship between insurance sector and financial market and the underdeveloped insurance environment containing of only traditional products.

Since the deregulation of the Indian insurance sector in 1999, the market-share of the country's sole largest public-sector player Life Insurance Corporation of India has drastically gone down with the entry of private players. The abrupt rise in the presence of private players has eventually raised concerns about the performances of the life insurance players in safeguarding the interests of the policyholders. Further, the global financial crisis of 2007-08 had its contagion effects in the Indian insurance industry, the ripples of which were even felt in the performances of the Indian life insurers. The study thus makes an attempt to evaluate the operational efficiencies, productivity and financial health of the life insurance companies in India, covering the period from 2008-09 to 2014-15 against the backdrop of the global financial crisis and the insurance sector deregulation in India. The study has also hinted at the monopolistic-competition type of market structure prevailing in the country's life insurance sector. The study further gave indications about the commendable turnaround manifested by the life insurers from the spill-over effects of the financial crisis post 2010.

The U.S. life and property/casualty (P/C) insurance industries wrote over $1 trillion in total premiums in 2011 and play an important role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the economy. Concerns about the oversight of the insurance industry arose during the 2007-2009 financial crisis, when one of the largest U.S. holding companies that had substantial insurance operations, American International Group, Inc. (AIG), suffered large losses. These losses were driven in large part by activities conducted by a non-insurance affiliate, AIG Financial Products, but also included securities lending activity undertaken by some of its life insurance companies which created liquidity issues for some insurers. The losses threatened to bankrupt the company, and AIG was one of the largest recipients of assistance by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) set up during the crisis. This book examines any effects of the financial crisis on the insurance industry and policyholders, and addresses what is known about how the financial crisis affected the insurance industry and policyholders, and the types of actions that have been taken since the crisis to help prevent or mitigate potential negative effects of future economic downturns on insurance companies and their policyholders.

Many risks face the global insurance industry today, including the aging populations of developed countries, competition from other financial institutions, and both disparate and quickly changing regulatory demands, to name a few. The book s contributors offer their unique perspectives on challenges confronting the insurance industry and how attendant risks can be most effectively managed.

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.