Three Essays on Distribution Strategy and Business Operation－Evidence from Taiwan Life Insurance Industry

• Main Authors: Mei-su Chen, 陳美夙
• Other Authors: Pao-long Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/66197915404940056171

博士 === 逢甲大學 === 商學研究所 === 98 === It is an important issue for insurers to develop quality insurance products and appropriately distributing channel(s) for their target markets. A life insurer faces distribution channel decisions in a number of situations related their marketing efforts, especially, when it develops a new product or starts a new distribution system for an existing product in a new target market which cannot be easily reached by its existing distribution channel. But, choosing channel represents an enduring commitment: heavy investments are required and are not easily redeployed. Thus, the changes in channel can be difficult and painful. Hence, the distribution channel strategy decision is critical to the success of a life insurer. This dissertation consists of three essays on the distribution channel studies. As using multiple distribution channel is more popular in Taiwan life industry, the first essay of in the dissertation examine single distribution channel versus multiple distribution channel. We find that insurers using the single distribution channel strategy experienced larger gains in efficiency and profitability. It should be noted that we do not decompose multiple channels into two, three, or four channels. The results of second essay show that a direct distribution channel strategy performs better than a non-direct distribution channel strategy in terms of efficiency and productivity change. We do not consider later years (2007-2010) because of lack of data. In addition, we need to decompose multiple distributions into two channels, three channels, and four channels …etc. This would be the future research topic. In the third essay, we further explore the relations among capital, asset risk, and distribution forms. We summarize our results below. First, we find a negative relation between capital ratio and asset risk. In other words, insurers with high asset risk tend to have low capital ratio which support the risk-subsidy hypothesis. Unlike the literature, we find broker distribution system is negatively and significantly related to capital ratio. A possible reason is that for those insures, which do not have high capital, most likely do not have ability to establish their own distribution channel. Therefore, they rely on brokerage system.