We empirically investigate the trade-offs between three strategic goals of the insurance business: growth, profitability and safety. Analysing 1988 European insurance companies over 11 years with simultaneous equation models, we show that moderate firm growth is associated with high profitability, but extremely high growth is associated with low profitability (i.e. an inverse non-linear relationship). Our results show that less profitable insurers are taking more risks. Insurers that prioritise profit over growth in early periods are more likely to reach the ideal state of ‘profitable growth’ in later periods. Our results emphasise the need to jointly consider growth, profitability and safety in a multi-period context when evaluating firm performance.

我们根据经验研究了保险业务的三个战略目标之间的权衡：增长，盈利能力和安全性。用联立方程模型对1988年的1988年欧洲保险公司进行分析，我们发现公司的适度增长与高利润率相关，而极高的增长与低利润率（即逆非线性关系）相关。我们的结果表明，利润较低的保险公司承担的风险更大。在早期将利润放在增长之上的保险公司在后期更可能达到“可盈利增长”的理想状态。我们的结果强调，在评估公司绩效时，需要在多个时期内共同考虑增长，盈利能力和安全性。