Comparative Analysis of Life Insurance and Non-life Insurance, and Export & Credit Insurance in China, 2001-2008

This study is to measure the comparative quality of the growth of 30private insurance companies and government-initiated-insurance entity SINOSURE in terms of efficiency and productivity and to draw implications for the future growth of the organization. Using DEA measurements, we employed operational expenses, debt, and equity capitals as input variables, and claims incurred, reserves, and total invested assets as output variables. We find that SINOSURE’s operational productivity is, in general, inferior to those of life insurance and non-life insurance companies. Also, we find that the China insurance industry has been operating very close to the optimal scale.The scale efficiency score of life insurance companies is better than that of non-life insurers, which means that life insurance was operating more efficiently than non-life insurers in the sample. The results of SINOSURE show a decreasing return to scale. The scale efficiency score of SINOSURE is lower than the average score of the entire insurers. These lower scores might indicate that the management of the company is merely centered on the growth of premium income, which results in very low scale efficiency and requires scale adjustment. We may suggest that SINOSURE needs an innovative strategy that can lead to higher efficiency and productivity. In order to operate under increasing returns to scale or optimum scale, SINOSURE should downsize its scale structure. Non-life insurers may also need to pursuit a strategy similar to SINOSURE.