What is valuation of insurance companies?

How to Drives equity Value?

How to identify the primary drivers of the equity value?

This article describes all these questions very briefly.
The value of any financial claim is the present value of expected net flows to the owners of that claim. Accordingly, the value of common equity (Equity Value or EV) is the present value of expected net flows to common equity holders (Net Equity Flow or NEF):

re is the cost of common equity capital. Equation (1) assumes that NEF is paid at the middle of each year.
Theoretically, to value existing general equity, NEF should only contain flows linked with currently existing common shares. However, this approach is impractical because future dividends and share repurchases will be paid not only to existing shares but also to shares that will be issued in future. The substitute approach is to suppose that all future share issuance transactions will beat fair price; that is the current value of the cash or other resources or services that will be received when new shares are issued is equal to the present value of the subsequent dividends and share repurchases associated with those shares. Under this assumption, NEF is defined as the total of all common dividends, common share repurchases and non cash distributions, minus the light value of the assets or the services to be received in exchange for issuance of common shares.
Valuation model (1) can be restated in terms of comprehensive income available to common shareholders (CI) and the book value of common equity (CE) by substituting the following relation for NEFt:

This relation postulates that changes in common equity are due to either comprehensive income available to common shareholders or to net common equity flows. Given the definitions of NEF (discussed above) and comprehensive income, equation (2) accounts for essentially all changes in common shareholders’ equity.
Substitute equation (2) into (1),

For each term t, adding and subtracting re×CEt-1

Rearranging terms

And finally cancelling the offsetting terms.

That is, equity value is equal to current book value plus the present value of expected residual income in all future years, where residual income is earnings (CI) in excess of the return required by investors given the amount (CE) and cost (re) of equity capital, that is, CIt - re CEt-l.
I next define Return on Equity (ROE) as comprehensive income available to common Share holders divided by beginning-of-period common equity (i.e., ROEt= CIt/ CEt-l), and CUM_CE_Gt-l as cumulative common equity growth from time zero through the beginning of future year t (i.e., CUM_CE_Gt-l= CEt-l/ CE0). Substituting into equation (3) and algebraically manipulating the resulting equation.

That is, equity value depends on the current book value (CE0), the cost of equity capital (re), and expectations regarding ROE and common equity growth in all future years. Future ROE, in turn, depends on current profitability and accounting quality. ROE is quite persistent over time, implying that the current level of ROE is a reasonable starting point for predicting future ROE. In addition, in Sections 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5 below, I provide a detailed discussion of variables which inform on expected changes in ROE, with accounting quality indicators being the primary ones.
Dividing both sides of equation (4) by the book value of equity yields an equation which identifies the determinants of the value-to-book ratio: future profitability (and hence current profitability and accounting quality), growth, and the cost of equity capital.

Note that equation (5) establishes a benchmark for ROE, which in turn determines the relationship between the price and book value of equity. In particular, for the price-to-book ratio to be bigger than one, probable ROE must be bigger than the cost of equity capital.
Valuation equations (4) and (5) emphasize the roles of book value and shareholders’ profitability (CE and ROE, respectively) in determining equity value. For reasons discussed below, these are key valuation metrics when analyzing financial service companies. Another valuation approach, which is used for essentially all companies, is to focus on earnings, earnings growth and payout. The link between these drivers and equity value can be established by expressing Net Equity Flow (NEF) as follows:

That is, CUM_EAR_Gtis defined as one plus cumulative earnings growth from year zero through future year t (i.e., CUM_EAR_Gt= CIt/ CI0), and PAYOUTt is defined as the proportion of earnings paid out in year t (i.e., PAYOUTt= NEFt/ CIt). Substituting equation (6) into equation (1) and dividing by current comprehensive income (CI0), we get

That is, the ratio of equity value to current comprehensive income (CI0) depends on the cost of equity capital (re) and expectations regarding payout and earnings growth in all future years. Earnings growth, in turn, depends on long-term economic growth and accounting quality.
The following exhibit summarizes the determinants of the value-to-book and value-to-earnings ratios. To the extent that price reflects intrinsic value; these value drivers also affect the price-to-book and price earnings share ratios in that order.

Determinants of Value Ratios

Value ratio	Value Drivers
Value-to-book	Profitability, accounting quality, book value growth, equity risk, long-term interest rates
Value-to-earnings	Earnings growth, accounting quality, earnings payout, equity risk, long-term interest rates

The insurance business has gone from side to side a lot of uproar ever since the financial crisis of world. These four facts have big impact on this industry: effects of the globalization, market investment uncertainty, terrorist attacks and deregulation.
Here Hilman Insurance provides a list of the top 10 global insurance companies in the world.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 252.8 Billion

An American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in USA. Berkshire Hathaway controlled by its President and CEO Warren Buffet. Berkshire Hathaway managed several of subsidiary companies. The organization has averaged an annual growth of about 19% to its shareholders since the past 48 years.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 69 Billion

The biggest insurer of the People's Republic of China, the business holds about 45% of the Chinese market. Headquarter is in Beijing and was set up in 1931 in Shanghai.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 66.36 Billion

Allianz, headquartered in Munich in Germany, is among the very best 15 financial groups in the world. It was founded in 1890. Allianz was associated with deal with Commerz Bank in 2008-09 and currently holds a stake of about 14% in the bank.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 57.53 billion

An American insurance company, which has over 60,000 employees throughout the world, serves in over 130 countries. Its corporate headquarters are in New York, USA. It's been a well known sponsor after associating itself with Manchester United.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 57 billion

Ping An is a Chinese holdings company whose major businesses are insurance services and other related financial offerings. The organization was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Shenzhen.

Insurance Market Cap: $ 53.54 Billion

AIA is headquartered in Hong Kong and operates mainly in the Asia Pacific region including Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, India, Thailand and SriLanka. It was a person in the AIG Group; nevertheless it separated from the group in 2009.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 45.32 Billion

AXA is a French multinational conglomerate which operates primarily in Western Europe, Middle East and USA. The major businesses are insurance, life savings, asset management and supplementary financial services.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 43.96 Billion

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is one of many biggest insurance companies in the United State and serves about 85 of the global 500 companies. The company was founded in 1968.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 41.84 Billion

A Swiss insurance major, headquartered in Zurich, is one of many biggest brands in the insurance space. The organization employs over 60000 people and has clients and customers in over 160 countries.

Insurance Market Capitalization: $ 35.63 Billion

ING's insurance business is spread widely through the entire Americas, Australia and Europe. ING sold its Malaysian business to American International Assurance Co. in October, 2012. The deal was € 1.3 billion.