INSURANCE DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE QUALITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES. AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT

The connection between insurance and economic development has been intensively addressed in the literature, but a comprehensive analysis including the  dimensions of human capital/quality of life has been less considered. The general objective of this research is to assess the degree of development of the insurance sector in the interplay with the representative dimensions of quality of life, at the level of the European Union (EU) Member States (MS), and to propose strategies for narrowing the gap between countries. The data encloses representative indicators that reveal the size of the insurance market, on the one hand, and the dimensions of quality of life, on the other hand, at the level of 2019. The research methodology consists of cluster analysis with the Ward method. The main results reveal that, at the level of all EU-27 Member States, the size of the insurance market is interconnected with the quality of life, with significant differences between them, developing countries having modest results compared to developed countries. Thereby, specific strategies and policies for these groups of countries are paramount, in order to enhance the wellbeing by insurance services and coverage.