Productive Performance of the French Insurance Industry

The purpose of this paper is to provide for both life and non-life insurance an assessment of the relative productive
performance of French companies. We use parametric and nonparametric approaches to construct a frontier
to be used as a yardstick of productive efficiency. Our data basis covers 84 life and 243 non-life companies for
the period 1984-1989. The main findings show a high correlation between parametric and nonparametric results
and a wide dispersion in the rates of inefficiency across companies. This dispersion can be reduced when controlling
for variations in scale, ownership, distribution, reinsurance, and claims ratios.