Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance

Edited by Robin Pearson and Takau Yoneyama

The first book to examine the development of multiple organisational forms in insurance in an historical and international comparative context
Comprised of thirteen chapters written by expert scholars, based on original research and present several new datasets
The first book to relate historical analysis to modern organisational theory

Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance

Edited by Robin Pearson and Takau Yoneyama

Description

Given the infinite variety of risks throughout history, it is perhaps unsurprising that insurance - the world's primary risk mitigation industry - developed a wide range of organisational forms by which it was delivered. Yet we know little about how and why different forms were chosen in the past, or why they survived or disappeared.

This book is the first to examine the development of multiple organisational forms in insurance from an historical and international comparative context, and to relate historical analysis to modern organisational theory. Thirteen chapters cover eight major markets, US, UK, Germany, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Australia, South Africa, which together account for over half of all world insurance today. Each chapter is authored by an expert in their field, and several include new datasets. Major themes covered are the variety, choice, governance and regulation of organisational forms in insurance, the experience of mutual insurance in frontier economies and uncertain political environments, the long-run business performance of different organisational forms, and the problems surrounding the demutualization of modern insurance companies.

The book suggests the need for important revisions to current organisational theory, and it highlights several explanatory factors that have received little attention from scholars. These include the importance of regulation and the role of the state in shaping the organisational landscape of insurance at different times and places; the role of entrepreneurship in organisational choice; the utility of organisational forms as a risk management device, and the significance of cultural preferences in the selection of organisational forms.

Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance

Edited by Robin Pearson and Takau Yoneyama

1. Corporate Forms and Organisational Choice in International Insurance: An Overview of the History and Theory, Robin Pearson and Takau Yoneyama
Part I: The Variety, Choice, Governance and Regulation of Organisational Forms
2. Tsuneta Yano, Founder of the First Mutual Company in Japan: Was he an Obstinate Mutualist?, Takau Yoneyama
3. Organisational Choice in UK Marine Insurance, Robin Pearson and Helen Doe
4. Risk Management by Mitsubishi: From Self-Insurance to Captive Insurance, Hisaaki Kamiya
5. The Survival and Success of Swedish Mutual Insurers, Mats Larsson and Mikael Lonnborg
6. Organisational Forms in Insurance: A Comparison of the USA and Germany During Industrialisation, Robin Pearson
Part II: Mutual Insurance Organisations in Uncertain Environments
7. The World Insured South Africa: Early Insurance Activities of Insurance Companies in South Africa, 1820-1910, Grietjie Verhoef
8. Business Strategies Under Conditions of Uncertainty: The Rise of Mutual Life Insurers in Colonial Australia, Monica Keneley
9. Support for Mutual Insurance Companies During the Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975), Jeronia Pons Pons
Part III: The Performance of Different Organisational Forms
10. The Development of the Mutual Form and its Influence on the Life Insurance Industry: Evidence from Japan During the Period 1881 to 1935, Yingying Jiang
11. Growth Performance and Organisational Forms: The Case of Swedish Life Insurance 1890 to 1950, Magnus Lindmark and Lars Fredrik Andersson
Part IV: Demutualization
12. An Attempt by a Black Mutual Life Insurance Company to Demutualize: The Case of Golden State Mutual of Los Angeles, Natsuki Kinoshita
13. The Insurance Demutualization Process Develops in Spain with Mapfre, Leonardo Caruana de las Cagigas

Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance

Edited by Robin Pearson and Takau Yoneyama

Author Information

Robin Pearson, Professor of Economic History, University of Hull,Takau Yoneyama, Professor of Risk Management and Insurance, Hitotsubashi University

Robin Pearson is Professor of Economic History at the University of Hull, UK. He has published widely on British and international economic and business history, with a particular focus on the insurance industry. His first book, Insuring the Industrial Revolution: Fire Insurance and the British Economy, 1700-1850, won the 2004 Wadsworth Prize for Business History. Recent edited books include History of the Company, 8 volumes (2006-7), and The Development of International Insurance (2010). His latest book, Shareholder Democracies? Corporate Governance in Britain and Ireland before 1850, co-authored with Mark Freeman and James Taylor (University of Chicago Press, 2012), won the Ralph Gomory Prize for Business History in 2013.

Takau Yoneyama is Professor of Risk Management and Insurance at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan. His research covers topics from Business History of Insurance to Enterprise Risk Management. He was a chair of the Study Group for Solvency Margin and the related regulation, FSA, and jointed the Legislative Council on Insurance Law as a member. He was a president of the Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association in 2012/3. He is a chief editor of Japanese Business History Review and an editor-in-chief of JAVCERM Journal. He edited History of Insurance, 8 volumes (2000) with David Jenkins, and A Commentary on the Insurance Act in Japan (2010, in Japanese) with Tomonobu Yamashita. His most recent publication is Fundamentals of Risk and Insurance (2012 in Japanese).

Contributors:

Lars Fredrik Andersson, Umeå University
Leonardo Caruana de las Cagigas, Universidad de Granada
Helen Doe, University of Exeter
Yingying Jiang
Hisaaki Kamiya, University of Tokyo
Monica Keneley, Deakin University
Natsuki Kinoshita, Hitotsubashi University
Mats Larsson, Uppsala University
Magnus Lindmark, Umeå University
Mikael Lönnborg, Södertörn University
Robin Pearson, University of Hull
Jerònia Pons Pons, Universidad de Sevilla
Grietjie Verhoef, University of Johannesburg
Takau Yoneyama, Hitotsubashi University