پژوهشنامه بیمه
سال بیست و ششم شماره 2 (تابستان 1390)

Liberalization and privatization of Iranian insurance industry, has changed corporate behavior towards a more appropriate strategic and marketing planning in order to maintain market shares. This paper discusses portfolio prioritization in Life insurance with MCDM techniques. We use these techniques to assess resource prioritization in Toseeh Insurance Company. We use company assessments and documentation as our qualitative data source. Internal decision making processes are explained and various approaches are compared to each other. To estimate qualitative factor weights, we use the AHP approach, and for prioritizing portfolios SAW, TOPSIS and VIKOR approaches are used. These techniques have been used for all insurance corporate decision making for portfolios prioritization. We find that based on SAW and TOPSIS approaches, the Family Supporting Insurance was the first and the Juvenile Insurance the second priorities. These results are also supported by the VIKOR approach.

Traditional insurance principles for insurability require that there should be sufficient demand to yield appropriate levels of income revenue for insurers to supply the coverage. We study the provision of earthquake insurance and investigate the number of factors influencing demand for earthquake insurance in metropolitan Tehran, Iran. We investigate whether individuals’ expected utility when insured is more than their expected utility when not insured. We also investigate empirically, the effect of individuals’ risk aversion on demand for earthquake insurance. The main results of this study are summarized as follows: First, the expected utility in the state of insurance is more than the expected utility in the state of no insurance. Second, the results show that individuals’ risk aversion is significantly related to demand for residential earthquake insurance.

This paper aims to discuss customer segment ion in auto insurance market based on several risk criteria. Many businesses realize that their most important asset is their customer base. In today’s competitive business environment, the ability to identify profitable lines of business and build long term loyalty among customers with expansion of existing profitable lines is a major business strategy. Identifying customers with high default risk is a key competitive advantage to a company. The relatively high share of unprofitable business clients in many sectors leads to the question of how insurance companies should deal with such clients. Auto insurance in Iran is one of the largest lines of insurance business which has a large share in most insurance company portfolios. However, offering similar premiums for all people with different risks, leads to unfair rates and consequently losses. There are important factors such as age, gender, marital status, income and automobile characteristics like vehicle's make and model that can affect risks faced by the insured. Segmentation is one of the most important concepts in marketing which enables firms to target profitable customers, understand customer's desires, allocate resources, and locate against competitors. Customer segmentation involves subdivision of customers into smaller groups with similar characteristics. In our analysis we use Self-Organizing feature Maps (SOM) as a neural network to segment auto insurance customers, and then use K-means algorithm to compare with the SOM method.

The use of information technology (IT) and e-business in insurance industry has resulted in fundamental changes in the way insurance products are offered. Application of internet in marketing of insurance products is one way of utilizing IT. The development of insurance industry in Iran, despite capacity and various capabilities are facing numerous obstacles, which are the most significant drawbacks of these technologies. In addition, there are other obstacles that challenge life insurance products. In order to provide required resources, meeting various needs and public access to diverse advantages of life insurance, now more than any time before, we need appropriate methods of marketing in this industry. This paper aims to study and measure use of the internet in insurance industry in Iran, and particularly its effect on the performance and efficiency of life insurance marketing. To do so, use of the internet as a tool for communication, marketing, sales, improving brand image, cost reduction and competitive advantages were analysed. The study results show that use of the internet will lead to higher efficiency of life insurance marketing. Moreover, it is shown that the most significant items for improving the efficiency of life insurance marketing using the internet are data bases and human resources.

Insurance Industry is a particularly significant sector in domestic and foreign trade. Insurance company ranking increases shareholder awareness and also increases competition, industry innovation and development of society. This paper ranks and evaluates Iranian insurance companies using balance score cards as the criteria in MADM methods. One of the most notable points in utilizing MADM methods is the property of independence. Thus factor analysis was used for obtaining independent criteria. Twenty seven criteria were obtained from literature and experts’ viewpoints and grouped in four perspectives of balance score cards. Using factor analysis, scores of ten factors, with 95% explained variation, were obtained where factors weights with regards to eigenvalues were used as inputs for Vikor.

With increasing competition among insurance companies for a greater market share, companies try to increase their market power through competitiveness of their products. However, the load of competitive advantage falls on staff. The interaction between staff and customers will have an important effect in providing appropriate services and internal marketing can facilitate insurance companies in achieving their goals. On the other hand, human resources play essential roles in creating value and satisfaction for customers. Hence, most of the effort in leading organizations is to increase the wealth of high quality staff in gaining competitive advantage and trying to improve on it.This study examines the impact of internal marketing on customer oriented behavior by employees in Iranian insurance industry. The study uses descriptive surveys based on structural equation modeling. In this regard, statistical sampling and questionnaires were used. In addition a number of hypotheses are examined to demonstrate the impact of internal marketing on customer orientation. Finally a conceptual model is fitted and estimation is carried out using Lizrell software. The results show that job satisfaction in relation to internal marketing and customer orientation has an intermediary role.

This paper shows differences between accounting standard 28 and Insurance High Council regulations by recognizing insurance technical reserves and scrutinizing the nature of net profits in insurance companies. There are differences in interpretation of net profits in an insurance company according to accounting standard 28 and 58 insurance bylaws of the Council. There are also differences between accounting and reporting of catastrophe reserves as indivisible margin capital reserves (the ownership interest part). In order to show differences, the averages of net profits have been compared and various tests are carried out. Data sources were from Iranian commercial insurance companies and their audited accounts, for 1386 to 1388 fiscal years. Our results support the existence of significant variations due to accounting methods used.