Evolution of the bancassurance concept: banking and insurance associations

Abstract

This article intends to discuss the determinants of the evolution of banking-insurance relations in the global dimension.The simultaneous complementarity and substitutability of the offer of banking and insurance services in businesspractice led to a tendency to integrate the activities of banks and insurance companies in search of new distributionchannels, such as bancassurance. Hence, the aim of the article is an attempt to present the genesis, historical adaptation,definition, and the essence of the bancassurance concept. The basic question that guides the considerations hererelates to the symmetry of development, namely: has the phenomenon of integration of financial institutions under thebancassurance concept developed at the same pace and adopted the same paradigm in each country? To achieve thisgoal, the literature on the subject and intranet resources from the canon of the financial market were used. The backgroundof the analysis is the experience of countries around the world where the idea of banking and insurance interactionswas found.Moreover, the article discusses the determinants, models, and forms of bancassurance, as well as indicates the epicenterof its practices and presents the phases (periods) of its development. Moreover, the problem of the lack of uniformand commonly used in the literature on the subject as well as in the economic practice of defining the concepts of bankingand insurance connections was analyzed.