Nonlinear attractors and asymmetries between non-life insurance premiums and financial markets

Understanding how macroeconomic factors influence the underwriting cycle is a critical component of modelling cyclical movements in insurance dynamics. The purpose of this paper was to examine this issue to determine whether macroeconomic factors and non-life insurance premiums share a long-run attractor to which the system tends to return over time. We find strong evidence of linear cointegration in Canada, France, Japan, the UK, and the USA, with nonlinear attractors characterized by asymmetry in Canada, France, and the USA. The results suggest macroeconomic factors have important effects on insurance dynamics.