The paper examines efficiency and productivity of US property-liability (P-L) insurers using data envelopment analysis (DEA). We estimate pure technical, scale, cost, revenue and profit efficiency over the period 1993-2011. Insurers' adjacent year total factor productivity changes and their...

This research investigates reinsurance counterparty relationships in U.S. property-liability insurance. Counterparty relationships are measured in terms of reinsurance premiums ceded and reinsurance recoverable on paid and unpaid losses. Multiple regression analysis is used to analyze insurer...

In this paper, we study two types of accounting conservatism in the property-liability (P&L) insurance industry – ex-ante and ex-post conservatism. Ex-ante conservatism means that firms over-report liabilities initially, before more detailed information becomes available. In contrast, ex-post...

This paper empirically tests the divergent expectations model of pre-trial bargaining by exploiting variation in tort liability for bad faith insurance law. Using a repeated cross-sectional dataset of auto insurance claims from the Insurance Research Council, it estimates that the tort remedy...

We examine the optimal claims settlement strategy for a liability insurer when claimants can permanently misrepresent their loss by engaging in costly claims falsification. In this environment claims auditing is not a possible deterrent to fraud, and the settlement strategy consists of an...