The Role of Financial Conditions in Portfolio Choices: The Case of Insurers

65 Pages Posted: 14 Mar 2019 Last revised: 5 Oct 2020

See all articles by Shan Ge

Shan Ge

New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance

Michael S. Weisbach

Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Date Written: October 2, 2020

Abstract

Many institutional investors depend on the returns they generate to fund their operations and liabilities. How do these investors’ financial conditions affect the management of their portfolios? We address this issue using the insurance industry because insurers are large investors for which detailed portfolio data are available, and can face financial shocks from exogenous weather events that help us establish causality. Among corporate bonds, for which we can control for regulatory treatment, results suggest that when Property & Casualty (P&C) insurers become more constrained due to operating losses, they shift towards safer bonds. The effect of losses on allocations is likely to be causal since it holds when instrumenting for losses with weather shocks. The change in allocations following losses is larger for smaller or worse-rated insurers and during the financial crisis, suggesting that the shift toward safer securities is driven by concerns about financial flexibility. The results highlight the importance of financial conditions in institutional investors’ portfolio decisions.

Keywords: Financial conditions, investment, insurer, financial portfolio, asset allocation, risk, liquidity, corporate bonds

JEL Classification: G11, G22, G23, G31, G32

Suggested Citation

Ge, Shan and Weisbach, Michael S., The Role of Financial Conditions in Portfolio Choices: The Case of Insurers (October 2, 2020). Fisher College of Business Working Paper No. 2019-03-006, Charles A. Dice Working Paper No. 2019-06, NYU Stern School of Business, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3351939 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3351939

Shan Ge

New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance ( email )

New York, NY
United States

Michael S. Weisbach (Contact Author)

Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance ( email )

2100 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1144
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Cambridge, MA 02138
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European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

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1000 Brussels
Belgium

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