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Analyst Earnings Forecasts for Publicly Traded Insurance Companies

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  • Dennis Fan
  • Raymond So
  • Jason Yeh

Abstract

Several trends in the insurance and financial services industry, including demutualizationconsolidation, and deregulation, have attracted increasing attention from investors and financial analysts. This paper investigates the accuracy of the earnings forecasts of financial analysts for insurance companies. Our empirical results indicate that analyst forecasts outperform random walk time-series forecasts. Furthermore, we find that both disagreement over earnings forecasts among analysts and the relative forecasting error in the mean forecasts is smaller for life insurers than for property-casualty insurers, whereas the relative errors for forecasts for multiple-line insurers are in between the two. Forecasting error is a negative function of firm size and the number of analysts who are following a company, and is a positive function of the disagreement among analysts.Analyst forecasts have a timing advantage over the random walk model. Our results also suggest that the fair value reporting requirement (SFAS 115), which has been in effect since 1994, has enhanced the accuracy of analyst forecasts. The SFAS 115 has improved the superiority of analyst forecasts over the random walk forecasts for life insurers, but not for property-casualty insurers, and there is a weak improvement for multiple-line insurers. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006

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  • Dennis Fan & Raymond So & Jason Yeh, 2006. "Analyst Earnings Forecasts for Publicly Traded Insurance Companies," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 105-136, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:rqfnac:v:26:y:2006:i:2:p:105-136
    DOI: 10.1007/s11156-006-7212-1
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    2. C. S. Agnes Cheng & K. C. Kenneth Chu & James Ohlson, 2020. "Analyst forecasts: sales and profit margins," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 54-83, March.
    3. Yi-hsun Lai & Wen-chang Lin & Liang-wei Kuo, 2018. "Forestalling capital regulation or masking financial weakness? Evidence from loss reserve management in the property–liability insurance industry," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 481-518, February.
    4. Hueiling Chen & Cheng-Tsu Huang & Hsiou-Wei W. Lin, 2016. "Changes in analyst following for less covered firms accompanying Regulation Fair Disclosure: the roles of ability and industry experience," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 519-541, April.
    5. Li Xu & Alex Tang, 2012. "Internal control material weakness, analysts’ accuracy and bias, and brokerage reputation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 27-53, July.
    6. Zhaoyang Gu & Jian Xue, 2007. "Do analysts overreact to extreme good news in earnings?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 415-431, November.
    7. Burke, Qing L., 2019. "Why haven’t U.S. GAAP and IFRS on insurance contracts converged? Evidence from an unsuccessful joint project," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 131-144.
    8. Abed Al-Nasser Abdallah & Wissam Abdallah & Feras M. Salama, 2018. "The Market Reaction to the Adoption of IFRS in the European Insurance Industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(4), pages 653-703, October.

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