Market discipline and policy loans

Abstract

We examine the conditions under which life insurer customers can use a policy loan to protect the unguaranteed cash value in their life insurance policies and annuity contracts from insurer insolvency, and thereby provide market discipline for life insurers. Consistent with policyholders using policy loans to protect their cash value, our empirical evidence indicates that insurers’ policy loan growth rates are negatively associated with measures of insurers’ financial strength, specifically their capital ratios. We also find evidence that the negative association is stronger for insurers that focus on selling annuities.