ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF THE BRAZILIAN INSURANCE SECTOR: APPLYING DEA TO THE FINANCIAL AND ACCOUNTING INFORMATION OF 2005

Abstract

This paper has as aim the evaluation of the brazilian insurance market efficiency in the year of 2005, through a comparative analysis, by segment, of Life and Providence, Health and General insurance companies. For that, based on the data extracted from the Valor Financeiro 2006 magazine, were built the base-indicators of the study, which are: Benefits Expenses, Claim Ratio, Operational Gain and Financial Gain. The analysis methodology used was the DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis), the CRS model, with output and input orientation. The results show that the operational gain is pointed as a major trouble of the insurance companies of all sectors analyzed, although this happens with less intensity in the Health sector. This way, it is concluded that the majority of the insurance institutions have their performance kept by the financial results, with the exception of the Health sector, the only one to show operational gains able to, by themselves, become positive the results of the institutions. Besides, the differences about the performance, concerning the variation of sizes and the relation with the major financial groups, were irrelevant. It means that the small institutions have full conditions of survival and competitiveness, because it is not the size that creates the competitiveness, but the high performance.