Investigating Risk Disclosure Practices in the European Insurance Industry

In light of the upcoming Solvency IT Pillar 3 disclosure regulation for the insurance industry, this paper explores the risk disclosure practices in annual reports of European primary insurers in the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Insurance Index between 2005 and 2009. On the basis of a self-constructed risk disclosure index, the study examines the relation between the extent of risk disclosure and insurance companies' characteristics such as size, risk, profitability, ownership dispersion, cross-listing, home country and type of insurance sold, to draw inferences regarding motives for enhanced risk disclosure based on positive accounting theory. The Geneva Papers (2011) 36, 380-413. doi:10.1057/gpp.2011.13; published online 1 June 2011