한국 보험회사 다각화전략의 성과에 관한 연구

This study investigates the effect of diversification strategy on earning volatility and profitability in the Korea insurance company. This paper tests the portfolio diversification effect hypothesis which states that the diversification strategy can reduce earning volatility of the insurance company. Also whether the diversification discount exists in Korea insurance companies is an important issue of this paper. The equilibrium panel data of 24 insurance companies including property insurance companies and life insurance companies during the period of 19 years from 1999 to 2017 are used to test the hypothesis. Major findings of this study is as follows. First, while the insurer’s asset diversification strategy reduces earning volatility, the earning diversification strategy does not affect the earning volatility significantly. Second, the insurer’s diversification strategy decreases profit in the short term period. While the asset diversification does not affect the profit of company significantly, the earning diversification strategy increases the cost of company. Third, main test results are dominated by life insurance companies, the diversification effect of property insurance companies are not significant. Forth, both of diversification strategies reduces the short term profit of insurance companies for the two sub-period consistently. But the effect of reducing earning volatility of the strategies are varied along with the test periods.