Research On The Impact Of Participating Level Of Bancassurance Business On The Operating Efficiency Of Chinese Life Insurers

In recent years, the premium income of bancassurance has rapidly grown, and theproportion of the all premium income of the insurance industry is growing.So,bancassurance has become the one of the important marketing channels of insuranceindustry.At this stage，the domestic bancassurance product is mainly life insuranceproduct, and this paper explores how the degree of the life insurance companiesparticipating in the bancassurance business influence the company’s operating efficiency.First of all, the paper has defined bancassurance， used economics theory to analyzethe efficiency of insurance companies operating efficiency, chosen the evaluation methodand evaluation index of variables suitable,and analyzed how life insurance companiesinvolving in the bancassurance business influence their operating efficiency. Secondly,the panel data of20life insurance companies on the Chinese market in2008to2010hasbeen selected, and data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been used to calculate thetechnical efficiency,pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of the life insuranceduring the study period. Finally, considering the important contribution of bancassurancepremium income to life insurance industry,the paper has focused on the perspective of thelevel of the life insurance companies participating in bancassuance business to put forwardhypotheses and select the relevant variables, in order to establish Tobit regression modelof an empirical analysis to explore the main factors affecting life insurance companiesoperating efficiency.The following conclusions are drew through the empirical research.First, on theoperating efficiency for the life insurance company, the overall operating efficiency ofChinese life insurance industry is not ideal, and the distance to efficiency frontier islarge.During the study period, the average technical efficiency also presents slightdownward trend year by year. So, the operating efficiency of Chinese life insuranceindustry is not optimistic. Second, the empirical results indicate that the bancassurancebusiness premium income accounting for the higher life insurance company, its technicalefficiency and pure technical efficiency are the higher. If the life insurance company signsthe cooperation agreement with more bank outlets, the scale efficiency is higher.Addition, the length of the period when life insurance companies have participated in thebancassurance business, has a positive relationship with scale efficiency, technicalefficiency and overall operating efficiency. So,the degree of the life insurance companies involving in the bank insurance business, has a positive impact on their scale and technicalefficiency. Therefore, the development of the bancassurance business indeed enhance thecompany’s operating efficiency of Chinese life insurance. Finally, the regression resultshows that whether a life insurance company is a financial holding subsidiary is nosignificant effect on its operating efficiency. Because, during the study period, theoperating efficiency of the financial holding subsidiaries in the short term may not bereflected.