Corporate social responsibility in the international insurance industry

This paper investigates the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of insurance companies. Rating institutions provide costly information about firms' CSR and it is not clear how they arrive at their assessment. We use a transparent framework to assess the CSR of insurance companies. We apply this framework to different types of insurers (financial conglomerates, life insurance companies, mixed insurers, general insurers) for more than 150 institutions from 20 countries. We find significant differences between different types of insurers and between countries. The results also suggest that social and ethical aspects of CSR are better integrated in the business activities of insurers than environmental aspects are. Financial conglomerates perform better than other types of insurers.