| Market concentration is one of the core issues of modern industrial organization theory. With special historical background, an "oligopoly, medium and small symbiosis" insurance market structure was developed in China. To begin with the status quo of the Chinese insurance industry, I took a brief review of previous research on the insurance market concentration, and then I sort the domestic and foreign theory of the market structure. Empirical analysis used data of Chinese insurance from 2010 to 2014. Property insurance premium and life insurance premium were chosen as the basis data of market share. According to the theory and measurable indicators of market competition, an empirical analysis was applied on factors, including concentration (CRn), Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), the entropy index (EI), which provides evidence that life insurance market concentration decreased more significantly than the property insurance market from 2010 to 2014. Then, based on the framework of the literature about national insurance market concentration, a further segmentation of research objects was applied, the object expanded into 31 provinces (municipalities) insurance market. In comparison with different provinces, I found that the insurance market concentration is significantly different between provinces with different level of economic development. I assumed negative correlation between regional insurance market concentration and regional insurance penetration and density. I used Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), the entropy index (EI), insurance penetration and insurance density to do Pearson correlation analysis, and got the following result. Firstly, there is significant negative correlation between local insurance market concentration and the insurance penetration and density. Secondly, the correlation in life insurance market is more significant than in property insurance market. Lastly, the correlation with insurance density is more significant than with insurance penetration. On the basis of empirical analysis, I did further research on the influence factors, and put forward the corresponding policy recommendations. |
