Introduction
People and businesses buy insurance to control the risk of unexpected events. Insurance companies also buy insurance to cover their risks, which is known as reinsurance. Reinsurance is a way to control the insurer's risk and capital management. Therefore, it is very important. Due to the long-term nature of life insurance policies, the premium paid by the policymakers should be secured for long periods and returned to them as promised. During the past years, Central Insurance has been obliged to reduce compulsory reinsurance in the commercial insurance industry. Based on the approval of the Central Insurance Board, since January 2024, the percentage of compulsory reinsurance in life insurance has been reduced to 13%. It should be noted that according to Article 71 of Establishment Act of Central Insurance of IR Iran & Insurance Operations approved in 1971, this amount was 50%. In addition, despite the high rate of occurrence of natural disasters in Iran, the preliminary analysis of the statistics related to life insurance reinsurance coverage in Iran shows that the purchase of optional reinsurance coverage was very limited and insurance companies mainly have kept the risk excess of the mandatory reinsurance share. Due to the gradual reduction of the share of compulsory reinsurance, a detailed examination of the reinsurance market and its pathology seems necessary.
Methodology
According to the purpose, this article is an exploratory research. After the pathology of the existing situation, the proposed reforms were presented through interviews using thematic analysis method and then a wider survey was carried out at the level of the insurance industry, Therefore, the mixed method is used in this research. The statistical population of this research is reinsurance managers and life insurance managers of insurance and central insurance of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Considering that interviews were used to collect information in this article, deep theoretical saturation was achieved with 8 semi-structured interviews. Content validity was used to measure validity. Using the results obtained from the analysis of the interviews, a questionnaire with 17 questions was designed. This questionnaire was filled by 5 experts in the field of reinsurance and life insurance and their opinions were examined. Based on their comments, amendments were made to the questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha was calculated to calculate the reliability, and its value was more than 0.7, so it was concluded that the questionnaire has a good reliability. In the other words, using semi-structured interviews in this research, the factors caused the lack of feeling the need to buy life reinsurance coverage were identified and then weighted using the Shannon entropy model. In addition, based on the research findings, the SWOT matrix related to life reinsurance coverage was drawn.
Results and Discussion
The results showed that inefficient systems, low loss ratio, complexity of calculations, limitations created by laws and regulations, and the long-term nature of life insurance are among the most important factors caused by lack of feeling the need to buy life reinsurance coverage. In the other words, the identification of risk in life insurance and its long-term nature makes this field sensitive to buy its insurance coverage. Reinsurance contracts are often for one year, while life insurance may cover 30 years, so the reinsurer will be involved in complex policy calculations for a long time. Due to the inefficient systems of insurance companies and central insurance, it is not possible to perform calculations systematically, therefore, the reinsurer is not willing to provide reinsurance coverage. Furthermore, the increase in the holding capacity of insurance companies on the one hand and the low loss ratio in life insurance on the other hand have made insurance companies unwilling to buy reinsurance In Iran, the focus of insurance companies' sales is on savings life insurance, and reinsurers do not have much desire to provide reinsurance coverage for the savings part, because the savings part is a definite debt. For life insurance covering the risk of death, due to the low volume of sales and the fact that the death capital of insurance policies is limited, there is practically no need for reinsurance. Also, it should be noted that the increasing complexity of the business environment of today's organizations and increasing competition have increased the importance of managers' decisions in all sectors. The insurance industry is not exempt from this and therefore, today, the strategic decisions of the managers of the country's insurance industry can guarantee the survival and success of this industry or cause its failure. It is obvious that without having enough knowledge about the technical issues of life insurance, the insurance managers will not be able to make appropriate strategic decisions in this field. Therefore, the insurance managers should have sufficient knowledge of the products, coverages and plans of life insurance provided by the insurance companies and their technical features. Finally, high inflation and the existence of alternative markets are factors that make buying life insurance unattractive to people. Indeed, high inflation was recognized as an effective factor in the complexity of life insurance customers' behavior and increase in its redemption.
Conclusion
This research aims to investigate the current situation, pathology, analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of life insurance in Iran. Also, this research seeks to identify factors affecting the lack of feeling the need to purchase life insurance coverage by insurance companies in Iran. It is suggested that the insurance companies and the supervisory body of the insurance industry take into account these factors, while modifying and completing the processes and structures to remove the obstacles and limitations, take the necessary measures in order to take advantage of the strengths of the life reinsurance coverage. Indeed, they need to use the opportunities especially to improve the knowledge of reinsurance managers and provide reinsurance coverage for the life insurance saving policies in order to build the trust of a significant part of life insurance policyholders.