Insurance and Issues in Financial Soundness


Book Description

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.




The American Economic Review


Book Description

Includes papers and proceedings of the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. Covers all areas of economic research.




Macroprudential Solvency Stress Testing of the Insurance Sector


Book Description

Over the last decade, stress testing has become a central aspect of the Fund’s bilateral and multilateral surveillance work. Recently, more emphasis has also been placed on the role of insurance for financial stability analysis. This paper reviews the current state of system-wide solvency stress tests for insurance based on a comparative review of national practices and the experiences from Fund’s FSAP program with the aim of providing practical guidelines for the coherent and consistent implementation of such exercises. The paper also offers recommendations on improving the current insurance stress testing approaches and presentation of results.













The Insurance Industry


Book Description




United States


Book Description

Though The United States has experienced a devastating financial crisis owing to multifaceted factors, it started showing recovery. The authorities welcomed the program, which included strengthening microprudential regulation, establishing macroprudential responsibilities, strengthening market discipline, and reforming credit policies. They emphasized the need to establish a council of regulatory agencies such as the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, with a mandate for financial stability. They stressed the need to enhance crisis management, resolution, and systemic liquidity arrangements, and also to address too-big-to-fail issues and the future of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).




Line-Item Analysis of Earnings Quality


Book Description

Line-Item Analysis of Earnings Quality provides a comprehensive summary and analysis of the specific earnings quality issues pertaining to key line item components of the financial statements. After providing an overview of earnings quality and earnings management, Line-Item Analysis of Earnings Quality analyzes key line items from the financial statements. For each key line item, the authors: review accounting principles; discuss implications for earnings quality; evaluate the susceptibility of the item to manipulation; describe analyses and red flags which may inform on the item's quality. Line-Item Analysis of Earnings Quality will prove useful in conducting fundamental and contextual analyses through its analysis and evaluations.