TITLE
"The Level and Structure of Executive Compensation within The Insurance Industry," Journal of Insurance Issues, Manoj Athavale and Stephen M. Avila, Fall 2005, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 131-150. Full-text articles soon will be available through ABI/INFORM and EBSCO. Entire article in Acrobat format.

ABSTRACT
In this paper we examine the prevailing level and structure of executive compensation within the insurance industry. We analyze the level of base pay, annual bonus, long-term compensation, and option grants of 836 executive positions at 92 companies of various sizes in 1999 and 2001. The data allow an introspective look at the manner in which the top management teams within the insurance industry were compensated during this period, and extend previous studies on insurance executive compensation beyond the CEO position. We examine the level of compensation across executive rank and find evidence supporting the tournament compensation model. We also find that compensation structure across executive pay ranks is similar within small and medium-size insurance companies but different within large companies.
[Key words: Level and structure of executive compensation, tournament model, pay equity model]