A Note on the Asset-Specific Nature of Life Insurance Firms

The concept of asset specificity is an important feature of the transaction-cost economics literature. This literature predicts that asset specificity – which embraces physical assets, specialist human capital and intangibles such as brands – fosters greater certainty in complicated transactions of long duration. The business of life insurance is a classical example of complex and long-term exchange between the owners and managers of the firm and its customers. This note thus examines the concept of asset specificity and considers its relevance to the life insurance industry. To stimulate further research four hypotheses are put forward.