The Determinants of Life Insurance Demand in Central and Southeastern Europe

The main purpose of this study is to identify determinants of the demand of life insurance in 14 countries in Central and South- Eastern Europe (CSEE). We use fixed-effects panel model for the period 1998 - 2010 allowing each cross-sectional unit to have a different intercept term serving as an unobserved random variable that is potentially correlated with the observed regressors. We use two measures as a demand for life insurance: life insurance penetration and life insurance density. The research results show that higher, GDP per capita, inflation, health expenditure, level of education and rule of law are the most robust predictors of the use of life insurance. Real interest rates, ratio of quasi-money, young dependency ratio, old dependency ratio control of corruption and government effectiveness do not appear to be robustly associated with life insurance demand.