Performance benchmarking|India|Life insurance

In the last decade, the life insurance companies operating in India have made significant progress in terms of business consolidation. In view of the same, it is of interest to make an enquiry about the operating performance of these companies. This chapter compares 15 life insurance companies operating in India from the period 2005-06 to 2008-09 using the Hybrid Efficiency Model (Tone, 2004). The Hybrid Model provides a unified framework for the estimation of technical efficiency integrating the radial and non-radial characterisation of inputs and outputs. Out of the 15 in-sample life insurance companies, the number of technically efficient life insurers declined from 9 in 2005-06 to 4 in 2006-07 and further to 3 in 2007-08 and 2008-09. The mean technical efficiency scores of the in-sample life insurers declined sharply between 2005-06 and 2006-07 and improved somewhat thereafter.