Abstract:
Considering the importance of knowledge in the last decade, with regard to changing the world of economics and moving towards a knowledge-based economy, identifying, valuing and managing intellectual capital is very important. On the other side, intellectual capital forms an important part of the assets of insurance companies in recent years, so efforts have been made to better understand and exploit these assets. In this research, we investigate the effect of intellectual capital on the profitability of insurance companies over the period between 2011 to 2017.The components of intellectual capital including structural capital, human and communication as independent variable and return on assets (ROA) and the profitability ratio of insurance operations (UNDP) measures of measuring profitability, were considered as dependent variables. According to these variables and the purpose of the research, a main hypothesis and three sub-hypotheses were developed .The results of the hypothesis test showed that there is a direct significant relationship between human capital, structural capital, asset relational capital and return on investment (ROA) and the profitability of insurance operations (UNDP). In other words, increasing the components of intellectual capital increases the profitability of insurance companies.