The Curious Case of the Occidental and Regal: The Evolution of Solvency and Disclosure Standards in the Australian Life Insurance Industry In 1990 the Australian life insurance industry was rocked by scandal which threatened to destabilise consumer confidence in the ability of insurance providers to meet policy holder liabilities. The incident highlighted the nature of the agency problems which arise when conditions of asymmetric information exist. It revealed systemic weaknesses in accounting, solvency and disclosure standards as they applied to life insurers. This paper uses an evolutionary concept of agency to analyse government and industry responses to this event. It is argued that initial adaptive responses stabilised the industry and averted a more serious crisis. Longer term innovative responses led to the introduction of a new and more rigorous approach to reporting and solvency standards which has improved information flows and agency outcomes.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Deakin University, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance in its series Economics Series with number
2006_18.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Dr Xueli Tang).
Related research
Keywords:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: