Studies have found that interest rates create incentives for insurance firms to focus on financial markets through investments. Using a cross-country context, we conjecture that interest rates affect the life insurance market’s development. Using an initial sample comprising the time series of interest rates and insurance markets’ measures from 34 countries across 1998–2017, we found that the density and penetration of the life insurance market is low in countries with high interest rates. Using another sample of 6,451 observations from insurance firms operating in the same 34 countries, we verified that the financial and operational incomes are equally significant in predicting the net income for life insurance companies that operate in countries with high interest rates. Our study contributes to observations that the lack of governmental control over public expenses impacts interest rates and, thereby, the opportunities for insurers.

研究发现，利率激励保险公司通过投资关注金融市场。使用跨国背景，我们推测利率会影响人寿保险市场的发展。使用包含 1998-2017 年 34 个国家的利率时间序列和保险市场指标的初始样本，我们发现高利率国家人寿保险市场的密度和渗透率较低。使用来自在相同 34 个国家/地区运营的保险公司的 6,451 个观察样本的另一个样本，我们证实财务和运营收入在预测在高利率国家/地区运营的人寿保险公司的净收入方面同样重要。