The Impacts of Regulation Quality on the Development of Insurance Industry

According to the New Institutional economics, one of the formal institutions that can affect the performance of the industry is the quality of regulations governing the industry. The process of insurance regulatory reforms in the world shows that the system of financial supervision along with the regulatory institution, which is independent from the government's control, can bring about more profit and advantages for the society and develop the insurance industry by applying appropriate monitoring of market, and guaranteeing better quality of insurance services. The main problem this paper seeks to solve is that the regulation quality in the insurance industry has impacts on the development of the industry.
2. Theoretical frame work: Criteria such as qualifications to enter the market, tariff regulatory standards, standards of solvency and technical reserves and the governance of regulator can affect the quality of insurance regulation. Evidence gained from the process of reform of insurance regulation in different countries shows that the financial regulatory system along with independent regulation systems can be more advantageous to society and improve the performance and the growth of insurance industry by making use of appropriate supervision of the market and ensuring the quality of insurance services.
Due to the fact that this system does not harm insurance firms, reduce the probability of regulatory capture, and reduce regulatory compliance costs, it can improve the performance of insurance industry.
3. In this paper, we selected ten countries whose development of insurance industry and insurance regulatory quality were evaluated in two groups. The first group consists of five developed countries including the USA, UK, Japan, Germany, and South Korea, and the second group includes five countries with average developmental level, including Turkey, Iran, Mexico, Singapore and Malaysia.
The problem this paper highlights is analyzed using a comparative analysis and econometric models with panel data. Two groups of countries, developed and developing countries are the study sample during 1989 to 2012.The quality of insurance regulation data was collected based on the Insurance Core principles (ICP) and Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), country reports of the IMF, as well as regulatory reforms in the countries during the period the study was being done and the data of insurance development were collected on the basis of insurance penetration.
4. The results show that insurance regulation in developed countries has more impacts on insurance industry development than in developing countries. Although the effect was small in all countries of the sample, results suggest that the effect of this institutional variable is incremental.
5. Conclusions and Suggestions: The following suggestions are given about the insurance regulation reforms: First, the nature of regulation and supervisors must be in a way that is less influenced by politics and government decisions.
Second, the nature of the insurance regulatory and supervisory institutions should be in a way that all stakeholders are involved in the regulation.
Third, good de facto behavior of an official institution for insurance regulation is more important than having well de jure institution in the country.