Insurance Convergence and Post-crisis Dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe

What is the impact of economic convergence and of structural breaks like the global financial crisis on insurance development? We employ a dynamic panel data GMM framework on a sample of eight Central- and Eastern European countries in the period between 1994 and 2014. Particular emphasis is on the relationship between economic growth and growth of life and non-life insurance during the transition period. A variety of enabling environment indicators influences insurance growth, and we find considerable differences between the life and non-life insurance market. In addition, we identify an insurance convergence effect that is significant before the 2008/2009 financial crisis. We investigate how these dependencies changed in the aftermath of the crisis.