Abstract: Although the premium income and asset size of foreign-funded insurance companies are increasing quickly, their market shares are not increased relevantly, some foreign-funded life insurance companies even have to exit Chinese market. Based on the corporate unbalanced data, with the method combining data envelopment analysis and panel data quantitative model, this paper analyzes the WTO entry effects of the foreign-funded insurance companies from the perspective of operating efficiency, so as to explore the causes for their lower operating efficiency. The study shows that whether in foreign-funded life insurance company or in foreign-funded property insurance company, to raise labor productivity can promote the operating efficiency. The overall WTO entry has significant negative effect on the operating efficiency of foreign-funded life insurance company, but has non-significant effect on foreign-funded property insurance company.

Key words: foreign-funded insurance company; operating efficiency; WTO entry effects; unbalanced data