Open AccessThe continuous market cycle of the short term insurance industry
Author(s) -
Liezel Essel,
Frederik J. Mostert,
Jan Hendrik Mostert
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
risk governance and control: financial markets and institutions
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2077-4303
pISSN - 2077-429X
DOI - 10.22495/rgcv2i1art3
Subject(s) - business cycle , business , insurance industry , term (time) , empirical research , phase (matter) , actuarial science , economics , macroeconomics , philosophy , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , epistemology , quantum mechanics
The short-term insurance industry is a cyclical type of business due to the impact of the continuous market cycle. This cycle has a growth phase, soft market phase, hard market phase and a break-even phase. The objective of the research paper focuses on the improvement of financial decision-making when executives of the short-term insurance industry are managing their business during the various phases of the continuous market cycle. Both a literature study and an empirical survey were necessary to achieve the research objective. The empirical survey included the contributions of the top nine commercial and corporate short-term insurers in South Africa. They represented more than 77% of the total gross written premiums in 2009 and can thus be considered as the leaders of the short-term insurance industry in this country. The conclusions of the study should be valuable to other developing countries with emerging market economies as South Africa is also classified as such. The study focused on the various factors which may cause the continuous market cycle, the problem areas which the executives experience concerning the continuous market cycle, and how often various factors are adjusted by the short-term insurers to account for changes in the continuous market cycle.