Large-scale disasters and the insurance industry

Arbeitspapier

We investigate the impact of the 20 largest - in terms of insured losses - man-made or natural disasters on various insurance industry stock indices. We show via an event study that insurance sectors worldwide are quite resilient, in a market value sense, to unexpected losses to capital: our data provide evidence that equity market investors believe that insurance companies will on average be able to make losses back over the foreseeable future, i.e. that the adverse shocks to equity which have resulted from these catastrophes will be compensated by either an outward shift of the demand curve or an ability to raise premiums, or both.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 2243

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy ; Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
• Subject: disaster ; insurance industry ; event-study ; Versicherung ; Naturkatastrophe ; Politische Gewalt ; Kapitalertrag ; Schätzung ; Welt

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Krämer, Walter ; Schich, Sebastian T.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2008

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/26288
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET