A Comparative Study of the Efficiency of Insurance Companies in Iran and MENA Countries

The critical role and status of the insurance industry in the modern economy is inevitable. In recent years, particular attention has been paid to the efficiency of insurance companies in Iran. In the sixth program policies, this issue has also been emphasized. A brief review of the indicators of the level of insurance penetration, insurance density and the percentage of the total insurance premiums of the world indicate that so far this industry has not achieved its status in the national economy. The first step in the development of insurance is to consider whether insurance companies in Iran, with regard to their resources, are efficient? To this end, insurance industry of Iran and other countries of the MENA were examined. In this study, to measure technical efficiency, non-parametric method of data envelopment analysis and parametric method of stochastic boundary function estimation - to identify the factors affecting the efficiency of insurance companies - and non-parametric method adjustment have been used. Based on the results, the growth of GDP per capita and technical reserves has a positive and significant effect on insurance industry efficiency and the insurance industry of Iran has the highest efficiency among MENA countries