Der direkte Einfluss internationaler Regulierung auf die Strategie österreichischer Versicherungsunternehmen seit der Finanzkrise im Jahr 2008

This thesis investigates the direct impact of international regulation on the strategy of insurance companies in Austria since the financial crisis in 2008. Besides the fact that a new regulatory body to streamline regulation throughout the European Union was founded since 2008, also other international institutions and Governments defined regulation which must be implemented locally by the individual countries. Various researches already address the methods regarding how more efficient regulation can be achieved. However, this research does not address how regulation is implemented within the insurance companies and in particular the impact on these insurance companies, especially on their strategy.
This research gap was identified in this thesis and is addressed through conducting both, a quantitative and qualitative analysis in order to answer three research questions and bridge the gap from theory to practice in this thesis. While the theoretic analysis proofs that regulation has an impact on the strategy of insurance companies, also the interview partners underline that regulation has an impact on the strategy of their respective insurance companies. However, it is hard for the respective interview partners to name specific examples of strategic impact of the international regulation. Furthermore, the analysis identifies various methods regarding how the insurance companies address potential issues during their projects in order to become compliant with new regulatory requirements.
Both, the quantitative and qualitative analysis show that regulation has an impact on insurance companies. Furthermore, this thesis does not only proof this specific impact, but also shows significant deficits during the definition of strategies in and their implementation within the analyzed insurance companies in Austria. Throughout most companies with which interviews were conducted, no standardized framework exists in order to ensure a consistent creation, update and monitoring of the implementation of strategies. Besides that, this thesis proofs that the analyzed insurance companies in Austria do not only use different approaches in order to define, update and monitor strategies, but also that their approach to regulation differs in between the various companies.