Discipline Risk management in insurance and reinsurance corresponds to an important theoretical-applicative field responsible for investigating the necessary conditions to ensure the maximum efficiency of the function of identification, control and management of risks in various social and economic fields. This discipline is part of the family of sciences that studies financial phenomena and processes, approaching them, however, from a specific angle, namely that of evaluation, prevention and coverage, based on financial resources established in advance and in appropriate ways, potentially different situations - causing material and / or other losses. From this perspective, one of the primary objectives of insurance and reinsurance as a theoretical field, but also as an economic practice is the determination and correct analysis of the probabilities and possibilities of such situations. It should be mentioned that, as the degree of complexity and sophistication of modern micro and macroeconomic systems increases, their exposure to risks, crises and various atypical fluctuations also increases. This increase in sensitivity and vulnerability in the area of economic and social action emphasizes the importance of insurance and reinsurance.
As the insurance and reinsurance activity aims to provide financial protection mechanisms against a wide range of potential hazards, the approach of identification, analysis, quantification and risk assessment is an essential component of this business area. The risk study provides analytical and informational support for the design of insurance products and policies promoted by insurance companies. The offer and strategies of insurance companies result directly from the thorough, rigorous and systematic study of the entire range of possible risks that may affect the activity and integrity of different customer segments. In this way, risk management is the conceptual and methodological core on which the operations carried out in the insurance sector are based.
The insurance and reinsurance business represents the economic sector which, among other things, has the difficult function of taking over and absorbing the risks from the other areas of the economy. Another function of maximum importance assumed by insurance and reinsurance refers to the attenuation of discrepancies and inconsistencies too accentuated that appear periodically between real economic cycles and financial cycles. Within this sector, the "underground" tendencies are externalized, hidden from superficial or formal observations, outlining the main economic, financial or other risks. It turns out that insurance, as a "risk taker", forms an absolutely indispensable support mechanism for the normal functioning of the market economy. The efficiency of insurance and reinsurance is the direct expression of the level of uncertainty that characterizes the economy, manifesting a high degree of sensitivity to variations of random and unpredictable phenomena.
The profound structural changes that have taken place in the world economy, as well as in the national one - globalization, dematerialization, deregulation, sectoral relocations, deepening crisis, etc. - urge us to look critically not only at decision-making practices at different organizational levels of the economy. inspired them. These mutations exert particularly pressing effects in the sense of re-examining the theoretical concepts and models in most financial sciences. Insurance and reinsurance not only are not an exception, but, on the contrary, are at the forefront of this conceptual renewal, as it is the field that has taken on the mission of answering some fundamental questions:
What is currently the risk and, consequently, the feasibility of an economic, social or personal construction?
What are the main factors (inducers) of risks in modern society?
What are the means of protection against the tendency to multiply the risks?
Of course, the issue of insurance and reinsurance is much more complex, but we must recognize that the other concerns are, directly or indirectly, only derivatives subordinated to these three crucial issues, and the sharpness of the economic crisis forces us to revise, sometimes even radically, traditional perspectives on them.
We intend that the work we have elaborated should be constituted even if only in a modest contribution to the exploration of this issue, as rich as it is important for the competitiveness and economic consistency of a country.
Assoc. Dr. Roxana Arabela Dumitrascu
Assoc. Dr. Vadim Dumitrascu
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