금융 및 산업자본 생명보험사의 경영성과 비교와 금산분리의 타당성 검증

The study reviewed current debates and economic background of the regulation on the separation of financial (banking) and commercial business activities to test empirically whether the separation rule is still needed or not for the financial market development. For the empirical test, the paper employed data on 22 life insurance companies doing business in Korea over the period of 2006 and 2007 from each company's web site. The insurance companies are classified into two groups, insurers controlled by industrial or financial capitals, so as to compare the financial stability as well as business performance of both groups. The test results revealed that there is no difference in stability and profitability between the two groups while insurers controlled by industrial capitals are more cost efficient than those controlled by financial capitals at a significant level of confidence. Contrary to some previous study results, this study found that the profitability measured by ROA(return on asset) or ROE(return on equity) has not been affected by the difference in the characteristics of insurers' capital; but it was determined by expense savings, relative ratio of investment return over the cost of capital (or assumed interest rate), solvency margin ratio, leverage ratio of each insurer. Limitations of this study include the author did not examine directly the performance of the nation's banking sector. In addition, the paper investigated insurers' performance index rather than the financial market stability and safety net concerned by the separation-rule supporters.