Earnings management surrounding forced CEO turnover: evidence from the US property-casualty insurance industry

In this paper, we investigate earnings management surrounding forced CEO turnover for U.S. property-casualty insurance companies with differing organizational forms. We analyze the three principal organizational form types in the industry-publicly-traded stocks, closely-held stocks, and mutuals. We utilize a unique measure of earnings management, the loss reserve error. Multivariate results show that all ownership types over-state earnings during our sample period whether or not forced turnover occurs. Over-statement is highest for publicly-traded stocks, followed by closely-held stocks and mutuals. Organizational form matters in constraining managerial opportunism in the presence of forced turnovers. Incumbent CEOs of publicly-traded stocks manage earnings upward prior to forced turnovers, consistent with the cover-up hypothesis, but this hypothesis is not consistently supported for mutuals or closely-held stocks. The univariate results support the big-bath hypothesis for closely-held stocks, but the multivariate results do not support the big-bath hypothesis for any organizational form. Finally, corporate governance matters-high board independence and large board sizes are associated with less income over-statement.