Abstract: This paper adopts the panel data of China's 31 provinces from 2009 to 2018 and employs a moderated mediating effect model to empirically explore the causal mechanism of the impact of property insurance on the output of scientific and technological innovation. The findings show that property insurance industry can directly and indirectly have a positive impact on the innovation output, and that R & D investment plays a partial intermediary role between property insurance industry and innovation output. Different from the original assumption that as a market-oriented means, the role of property insurance will benefit from the market-oriented reform, this study believes that to promote the market-oriented reform excessively will hinder the property insurance industry from promoting scientific and technological innovation, and the degree of marketization plays a negative regulatory role in the relationship between property insurance industry and R & D investment. Therefore, in order to guide the property insurance industry to play a positive role, the government should first ensure to provide stable and substantial financial support for scientific and technological innovation, so as to avoid the interference of market failures in the field of science and technology.

Key words: property insurance industry, innovation performance, influencing mechanism, degree of marketization