OZ.S: insurance sessions at APEBH (2)

[Simon Ville]

Here are the insurance session proposals pasted into the body of the 
message.

APEBH 2008, Asia-Pacific Economic and Business History Conference:
“Responses to Environmental Change”

Insurance, Economy and Environment in the Asia-Pacific World
For the Melbourne conference in 2008 we wish to propose the following 
inter-related sessions, both under the above title. We anticipate that 
each session will comprise of three papers, with a chair and 
commentator. We have a preliminary list of potential presenters, that we 
can forward to the conference organisers upon request, but we also 
anticipate issuing a general call for papers via the usual lists (eh.net 
etc).

1. Environmental change, natural hazard, and the role of insurance
Environmental hazards, their economic impact and the redistribution of 
resources required to cope with them, are rapidly rising to the top of 
economic as well as political agendas. They are also attracting 
increasing interest among economic and business historians specifically, 
and, more generally, among historians interested in issues relating to 
perceptions and reactions to risk. Insurance, the classic risk business, 
is often affected earlier by environmental hazards than other industries 
and forced to adapt business strategies and underwriting policies. This 
session invites historians to explore the exposure and reaction patterns 
of the insurance industry to hazards associated with environmental 
change. Possible topics might include:
- Asia-Pacific specific disasters: typhoon, earthquake, tsunamis, and 
floods.
- The limits of insurance: 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami.
- The role of micro insurance in environmentally challenged regions.
- The “educational or regulatory” role of the reinsurance industry / 
reinsurance as an early warning system.
- The relationship between state relief programmes and the cost and 
supply of private insurance capacity.

2. Foreign insurers in a new environment
To a large extent insurance and reinsurance concepts were exported to 
Asia, predominantly from the UK, France, Germany, and, through 
reinsurance, also Switzerland and Germany. The vehicles for such exports 
were the world’s leading multinational insurance companies. These faced 
many of the informational and monitoring problems typical of western 
multinationals crossing cultural as well as political borders. This 
session invites historians to explore how the insurance industry 
adapted, or failed to adapt, when they moved to new markets in the East. 
Possible papers might include:
- Early UK insurance companies in Australia.
- Shanghai insurers in the 1940s, doing Western business with Western 
clients in an Eastern environment.
- Hong Kong insurance after the 1997 handover.
- The rise of an insurance market in the PRC.
- Takaful insurance in Indonesia and Malaysia.
- The relationship of western insurers with the state in closely 
regulated markets (Japan, China) or with state monopolies (India).
Further details about the conference can be found at the web page of the 
Economic History
Society of Australia and New Zealand: 
http://www.uow.edu.au/commerce/econ/ehsanz/
Please send abstracts to Prof Robin Pearson, Department of History, 
University of Hull, Cottingham Road, HULL HU6 7RX, email. 
R.Pearson at hull.ac.uk. or to Niels-Viggo Haueter, Swiss Re Corporate 
History, Mythenquai 50/60, CH-8022 Switzerland, 
nielsviggo_haueter at swissre.com

-- 
Professor Simon Ville
Head, School of Economics
Faculty of Commerce, University of Wollongong, 
NSW 2522, AUSTRALIA. Ph. 02-4221-3098
President, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand
http://www.uow.edu.au/commerce/econ/ehsanz/