The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on Financial Performance of Insurance Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The issue of audit committee characteristics is an area of interest to researchers due to its impact on the firm‟s financial performance. Some companies have experienced different results depending on how they embrace corporate governance issues. Firms which have embraced good audit committee practices are in a position to satisfy major stakeholders. On the other hand, companies which fail to embrace good audit committee practices have experienced difficulties. This research sought to bring out the effect of audit committee characteristics on financial performance among insurance firms in Kenya. The research established the effect of AC independence, AC tenure, AC size, AC financial expertise, AC meetings and AC multiple directorship on financial performance among insurance companies. Underwriting risk, liquidity and solvency margin were used as the control variables in the model. Descriptive research design was used. The target population was the 54 insurance firms in Kenya. There are 54 insurance companies in Kenya but only 49 provided complete data set. Research variables data were derived from audited company's annual financial statements from 2016 to 2020 for all 49 companies making 245 observations. Regression and correlation analysis were used to test the study hypotheses by establishing the relationship between audit committee characteristics and performance. The study found that AC independence (β=0.297, p=0.006); AC financial expertise (β=0.137, p=0.020) and solvency margin (β=0.156, p=0.010) had a positive and significant relationship with financial performance among insurance firms. Underwriting risk has a significant negative effect on performance (β=-0.422, p=0.000) while AC tenure, AC size, AC meetings, AC multiple directorship and liquidity were not statistically significant. The results also indicated R2 of 0.238 which implied that the selected independent variables contributed 23.8% to variations in performance. The study recommends that insurance firms should strive to have finance experts in their audit committees as this contributes significantly to financial performance. Policy makers such as IRA should also come with policies and guidelines of the proportion of finance experts in an audit committee. The study also recommends that IRA which is the regulator should make it mandatory for all insurance firms to have independent audit committees.