This study is devoted to analyzing the nature of the influence of a number of internal and external factors on the effectiveness of Russian insurance companies that demonstrate excellent financial results, taking into account the location of their head office. Return on assets (ROA) is considered as a measure of efficiency. The authors do not pretend to the comprehensive nature of the results obtained and note their close relationship with the characteristics of the external economic environment.

The analysis includes indicators whose values are available for management by the financial management of the company. Thus, the results obtained can be used to solve the problem of profitability management. The purpose of the study is to describe possible ROA management mechanisms, taking into account regional specifics.

The study included two groups of insurance companies for insurance other than life insurance – "metropolitan" with head office in Moscow or St. Petersburg and "regional", with head offices located in regional centers. For these groups, models of the statistical relationship between the value of return on assets and the values of a number of indicators traditionally taken into account when studying the problems of managing the profitability of the insurance business were built. To build models, samples were formed based on the annual reporting for the period from 2017 to 2020 (SPARK) of the group of leaders in terms of insurance premiums of the Expert RA rating agency based on the results of 2020.

The specification of models for "metropolitan" and "regional" companies was carried out taking into account the possible nonlinear nature of the statistical relationship of explanatory indicators with the ROA indicator based on the MFP algorithm. As a result of the construction and optimization of models for a number of indicators, a nonlinear form of their entry into the model was identified, which is useful for making financial decisions.

The result of the study was the conclusion about significantly different possible mechanisms of profitability management for "metropolitan" and "regional" companies. If financial mana­gement plays an important role in this process for "metropolitan" insurance companies – mana­ging the structure of assets and liabilities, then for "regional" companies the determining factor is their specialization in certain types of insurance.