A Survey of Data Envelopment Analysis Applications in the Insurance Industry 1993-2018

•A review of 132 data envelopment analysis studies in the insurance industry.•We analyze various applications of data envelopment analysis in the field.•The impact of recent insurance developments on efficiency is rarely examined.•Newly-developed data envelopment analysis models are less adopted in applications.•The two-stage approach is dominant in exploring the efficiency of insurance firms.