Managing Capital and Insolvency Risk via Internal Capital Market Transactions: The Case of Life Insurers

Abstract

Understanding the movement of capital between insurers and affiliated companies under common ownership is important for understanding insurer insolvency risk and the impact of regulatory policies regarding capital standards and group supervision. Aggregate data indicate that life insurers received substantial internal capital contributions from other entities in their group and decreased the internal shareholder dividends paid during the financial crisis. Panel data estimates indicate that, on average, a dollar decrease in net income when net income is negative is associated with a $0.32 increase in capital contributions from other entities in the group, and that a dollar increase in net income when net income is positive is associated with a $0.56 increase in the amount of internal shareholder dividends paid by the insurer to other entities in the group. Also, insurers with low (high) risk-based capital ratios receive more (less) internal capital contributions than other insurers. While the sensitivity of internal capital movements to performance and capitalization is concentrated in groups with a large number of affiliates, insurers in these groups do not on average, holding other factors constant, have lower capital or lower liquidity ratios than insurers in groups with less active internal capital markets.