IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/pennin/98-32.html

The Design of Private Reinsurance Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Eslyn Jean Baptiste
  • Anthony M. Santomero

Abstract

This paper examines the role of reinsurance relationships in the trading of underwriting risk when this trade takes place in an environment that is characterized by asymmetric information and in which information is revealed only over time. It begins by explaining how information problems affect the efficiency of the allocation of risk between insurer and reinsurer, and how long-term implicit contracts between insurers and reinsurers allow the inclusion of new information in the pricing of both future and past reinsurance coverage. Because of these features, the ceding company purchases a more efficient quantity of reinsurance. Specifically, such arrangements lead to more reinsurance coverage, higher insurer profits, and lower expected distress in the industry. It is, in short, Pareto improving.

Suggested Citation

  • Eslyn Jean Baptiste & Anthony M. Santomero, 1998. "The Design of Private Reinsurance Contracts," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 98-32, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:pennin:98-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/98/9832.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen, Franklin & Santomero, Anthony M., 1997. "The theory of financial intermediation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(11-12), pages 1461-1485, December.
    2. Doherty, N A & Tinic, S M, 1981. "Reinsurance under Conditions of Capital Market Equilibrium: A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 949-953, September.
    3. David F. Babbel & Anthony M. Santomero, 1997. "Risk Management by Insurers: An Analysis of the Process," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-16, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Rubinstein, Ariel & Yaari, Menahem E., 1983. "Repeated insurance contracts and moral hazard," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 74-97, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-Baptiste, Eslyn L. & Santomero, Anthony M., 2000. "The Design of Private Reinsurance Contracts," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 274-297, July.
    2. Juei-Hsiang Chen & Yung-Ming Shiu, 2025. "Tenure of the insurer–reinsurer relationship and underwriting performance: evidence from the US property-casualty insurance industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 50(4), pages 724-766, October.
    3. George S. Oldfield & Anthony M. Santomero, 1997. "The Place of Risk Management in Financial Institutions," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 95-05, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Anthony Santomero, 1997. "Commercial Bank Risk Management: An Analysis of the Process," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 12(2), pages 83-115, October.
    5. Henri Loubergé, 1998. "Risk and Insurance Economics 25 Years After," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 23(4), pages 540-567, October.
    6. Hyojoung Kim & Doyoung Kim & Subin Im & James W. Hardin, 2009. "Evidence of Asymmetric Information in the Automobile Insurance Market: Dichotomous Versus Multinomial Measurement of Insurance Coverage," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 76(2), pages 343-366, June.
    7. Dinah Rosenberg & Eilon Solan & Nicolas Vieille, 2003. "The MaxMin value of stochastic games with imperfect monitoring," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 32(1), pages 133-150, December.
    8. , H. & ,, 2016. "Approximate efficiency in repeated games with side-payments and correlated signals," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(1), January.
    9. Olutatwa Martha Katibi & Dr. Rebecca Mutia, 2025. "Digital Technologies and Financial Inclusion amongst Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Nairobi County, Kenya," International Journal of Finance, CARI Journals Limited, vol. 10(8), pages 50-69.
    10. Amos Mensah & Faizal Adams & Samuel Owusu Afriyie & Prince Asiedu & Vashti Owusu-Nkwantabisah & Stephen Prah & Awuah Michael & Malik Atahwu Rahaman, 2025. "The role of formal credit in enhancing maize production and profitability in Africa: empirical evidence from Ghana," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, Springer, vol. 106(2), pages 259-291, October.
    11. Fan Liu, 2018. "Why Buy Accident Forgiveness Policies? An Experiment," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(8), pages 1-1, August.
    12. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo & John Muellbauer, 2006. "Consumer credit conditions in the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 314, Bank of England.
    13. ,, 2015. "Unraveling in a repeated moral hazard model with multiple agents," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(1), January.
    14. Cummins, J. David & Lewis, Christopher M. & Wei, Ran, 2006. "The market value impact of operational loss events for US banks and insurers," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 2605-2634, October.
    15. Mark Flannery, 1999. "Modernizing Financial Regulation: The Relation Between Interbank Transactions and Supervisory Reform," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 16(2), pages 101-116, December.
    16. Cosma, Simona & Cosma, Stefano & Pennetta, Daniela & Rimo, Giuseppe, 2025. "Overcoming the “valleys of death” in advanced therapies: The role of finance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 366(C).
    17. James R. GARVEN, 1995. "The Demand For Reinsurance: Theory and Empirical Tests," Risk and Insurance 9507002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. James P. Gander, 2012. "Are European Banks in Economic Harmonay? An HLM Aproach," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2012_03, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    19. Abdul Karim, Mastura & Hassan, M. Kabir & Hassan, Taufiq & Mohamad, Shamsher, 2014. "Capital adequacy and lending and deposit behaviors of conventional and Islamic banks," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 58-75.
    20. Marco D'Errico & Tarik Roukny, 2017. "Compressing Over-the-Counter Markets," Papers 1705.07155, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2019.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wop:pennin:98-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fiupaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.