Insolvencies of life insurers in Europe have been virtually nonexistent. The deregulation of
European markets, however, is likely to dramatically alter that situation. The goal of this
study is two-fold: first, to identify significant variables in the early detection of financially
distressed life insurers; and second, to consider the importance of these variables to the
evaluation of life insurer insolvency risk in the European Union (EU). The availability of a
data sample approaching the universe of insurers in the US allows us to stratify a large …