Revista Română de Statistică – Supliment Trim II/2012 216 Crisis Management in Insurance Companies Lecturer Cristina Elena PROTOPOPESCU PhD Senior Lecturer Anca-Mihaela TEAU PhD “Artifex” University, Bucharest Abstract In this paper we present some considerations about management in insurance companies during the present economic recession. The insurance companies are important players of the financial market, serving a number of economic functions, such as allowing risk transfer, helping companies and people save and invest, enabling entrepreneurial spirit and business initiatives. We will examine the way recession influenced the global insurance field but also our internal market and we will identify a series of managerial approaches in order to overstep the present difficulties but also to rise insurers’ competitiveness and to carry on a performent management in this domain. We have defined a series of managerial approaches such as: strategic management, management based processes orientation, management methodologization or changing organizational culture. Key words: insurance, global financial crisis, strategic management, processes based management Introduction The global economic crisis has a lot of negative effects on an important part of the population from the affected countries, as well as on companies activating in the majority of economic fields. Despite of those aspects, it is important to recognize that the economic recession brings together a series of adjustments and a rethinking of the way business are done today to a microeconomics level but also to a global level. The present crisis became a challenge for companies’ management from all economic domains, including the insurance one. 1. Global insurance evolution Insurance companies are important players of the financial market, serving a number of economic functions such as allowing risk transfer, helping companies and people save and invest, enabling entrepreneurial spirit and business initiatives. Insurance provides a mechanism for pooling and transfer the financial consequences of risks. The insurer commits to financially compensating the policyholder if an insured event occurs. The insurance companies receive premiums for the covered risks that allow them to pay the insurance claims but also to operate on the market and obtain profit. Very often the insurance industry is connected to banking sector because in recent years both domains grown increasingly similar with respect to product offerings, distribution, regulation, and supervision. Despite this convergence, differences remain in the basic function and business models of bank and insurers. These differences are reflected in asset allocation, asset-liability management but especially in risk and capital management. All these elements generate a different exposure to financial crisis. The global insurance industry neither contributed to, nor was significantly affected by the credit crisis. Of course, there were some exceptions – the financial and mortgage guarantors and a small number of primary insurers and reinsurers that had entered into