The Valuation of Insurance under Uncertainty: Does Information about Probability Matter?

In a laboratory experiment we test the hypothesis that consumers' valuation of insurance is sensitive to the amount of information available on the probability of a potential loss. In order to test this hypothesis we simulate a market in which we elicit individuals' willingness to pay to insure against a loss characterised either by known or else vague probabilities. We use two distinct treatments by providing subjects with different information over the vague probabilities of loss. In general we find that uncertainty about probabilities has a weak impact on consumers' valuation of insurance. However, additional information about probabilities tends to marginally increase the price individuals are willing to pay to insure themselves. Implications for the insurance market are derived.     

Risk Aversion,Downside Risk Aversion and Paying for Stochastic Improvements

This paper considers the relationship between risk preferences and the willingness to pay for stochastic improvements. We show that if the stochastic improvement satisfies a double-crossing condition, then a decision maker with utility v is willing to pay more than a decision maker with utility u, if v is both more risk averse and less downside risk averse than u. As the condition always holds in the case of self-protection, the result implies novel characterizations of individuals’ willingness to pay to reduce the probability of loss. By establishing a general result on the correspondence between an individual's willingness to pay, and his optimal purchase of stochastic improvement when there is a given relationship between stochastic improvements and the amount paid for them, we further show that all results on the willingness to pay can be applied directly to characterize the conditions under which a more risk averse individual will optimally choose to buy more stochastic improvement. Generalizations of existing results on optimal choice of self-protection can be obtained as corollaries.     

Zur bedeutung einer Ausfallbedrohtheit von Versicherungskontrakten — ein Beitrag zur Behavioral Insurance

Kahneman / Tversky 1979 introduced the notion of so-called probabilistic insurance contracts. These are insurance policies involving a small probability that the consumer is not reimbursed because of a possible default of the insurance company. Extending the study ofWakker / Thaler / Tversky 1997, the present study contains an experimental analysis of the willingness of potential policyholders to pay for probabilistic insurance in dependency on the rating of the insurance company. It can be shown that people dislike probabilistic insurance and demand a substantial reduction in the premium to compensate for default risk. This reduction is rising with the default risk of the company. In addition, the results show a new phenomenon. The more an insurance company is threatened by default risk the less people are willing to accept contracts of this company at all. Finally the paper discusses implications for the control of insurance companies.     

Institutions,moral hazard and expected government support of banks

We model the expected support of banks with credit ratings from Moody's and Fitch, taking explicitly into account the capacity and willingness of governments to provide support in case of need, as well as their concerns about moral hazard (i.e., that the expected support may induce banks to assume bigger risks). Our results suggest that moral hazard concerns are relatively weak. In addition, a substantial part of the expected support can be attributed to the quality of a country's institutions. These findings have important implications for the dynamics of banking crises, the value of the ‘fair’ insurance premium banks might be called upon to pay for the expected support, as well as for ways to reduce the resulting negative externalities.     

基于居民支付意愿的洪水保险定价研究

洪水保险的合理定价是制约洪水保险建立和推广的瓶颈之一,以往的洪水保险定价研究都是从供给的角度考虑的,而供给与需求之间存在差异。为了探索居民对于洪水保险的需求价格,从居民的洪水保险支付意愿出发,运用条件价值评估法(CVM法),借助调查问卷,实证分析得出:我国居民洪水保险支付意愿价格为81元,并分析了对于支付意愿的影响因素。     

Pension Benefit Security: A Comparison of Solvency Requirements,a Pension Guarantee Fund,and Sponsor Support

Developed countries apply different security mechanisms in regulation to protect pension benefits: solvency requirements, a pension guarantee fund (PGF), and sponsor support. We compare these mechanisms for a generalized form of hybrid pension schemes. We calculate the expected log return for the beneficiaries, the shortfall probability, that is, the likelihood of the pension payment falling below the promised level and the expected loss given shortfall. Comparing solvency requirements to a pension guarantee system or sponsor support involves trading off risk and return. Additional spending on default insurance reduces the shortfall probability and the expected loss given shortfall but also lowers the probability of high positive returns as are feasible under solvency requirements.     

Creating Customer Value in Participating Life Insurance

The value of a life insurance contract may differ depending on whether it is looked at from the customer's point of view or that of the insurance company. We assume that the insurer is able to replicate the life insurance contract's cash flows via assets traded on the capital market and can hence apply risk‐neutral valuation techniques. The policyholder, on the other hand, will take risk preferences and diversification opportunities into account when placing a value on that same contract. Customer value is represented by policyholder willingness to pay and depends on the contract parameters, that is, the guaranteed interest rate and the annual and terminal surplus participation rate. The aim of this article is to analyze and compare these two perspectives. In particular, we identify contract parameter combinations that—while keeping the contract value fixed for the insurer—maximize customer value. In addition, we derive explicit expressions for a selection of specific cases. Our results suggest that a customer segmentation in this sense, that is, based on the different ways customers evaluate life insurance contracts and embedded investment guarantees while ensuring fair values, is worthwhile for insurance companies as doing so can result in substantial increases in policyholder willingness to pay.     

Bank Employee Incentives and Stock Purchase Plans Participation

We investigate which factors influence 44,649 employees’ decision to invest in a top retail banking group in France. We have two objectives: (i) to explore factors associated with the amount invested in the plan, and (ii) to explore whether these factors have same associations with the probability of investing more than the incentive pay i.e. being an active investor. Specifically, we focus on four parameters that have been shown to affect participation: liquidity constraints, imperfect knowledge of the plan, asset choice, and transaction costs. We confirm Engelhardt and Madrian (Natl Tax J 57:385–406, 2004) assumptions according to which such factors contribute to explain non-participation. We show that ESPP contributors have very specific and unobserved motivations, as shown with the positive correlations between error terms in the two steps of investment decisions. The existence of unobservable investment motives can be explained by a lower risk aversion, a higher time preference, or a strong willingness to participate to corporate governance.     

新生代农民工养老保险参与意愿及影响因素——基于安徽省调查数据

摘要：文章从理性选择理论出发,建立养老保险参与意愿模型,运用Tobit模型和安徽省微观调查数据研究了新生代农民工养老保险参与意愿及影响因素。研究发现,新生代农民工参与意愿较高,实际参与率较低;性别与婚姻对新生代农民工养老保险参与有显著影响,文化程度与年龄对新生代农民工养老保险参与没有显著影响;新生代农民工养老保险参与意愿概率不仅仅是其经济理性体现,更重要的是其非经济理性行为的体现,这些非经济理性变量对新生代农民工养老保险参与概率与数量都有非常显著的正向影响。     

The effect of information disclosure on demand for high‐load insurance

Economists, regulators, and consumer protection agencies have highlighted the welfare losses for consumers who purchase high‐load insurance against modest stakes risks. Mandatory information disclosure is a potentially attractive public policy tool that might improve consumers' choices, but has not been widely tested in insurance settings. We conduct an incentive‐compatible insurance demand experiment, in which we manipulate the information disclosed to subjects. We test whether any of the three most commonly suggested disclosures affect insurance demand, disclosing either (1) the true probability of loss, (2) the contract's expected loss, or (3) the insurer's profit on the transaction. Similar to consumers in naturally occurring insurance markets, subjects in the laboratory demonstrate significant demand for high‐load insurance against modest stakes. However, we find no effect of any of the three disclosure treatments on subjects' insurance choices. We discuss the implications of our results for possible public policy initiatives in insurance markets.     

Can Vehicle Maintenance Records Predict Automobile Accidents?

This article proposes that vehicle maintenance records can provide useful information for predicting the probability that an owner will have an automobile accident. To test the hypothesis, we use a unique data set that is merged from an insurance company and a vehicle manufacturer in Taiwan. We find weak evidence to support our hypothesis. Among all the proxies for proper maintenance, we indicate that proper maintenance defined by the recommended kilometers is significantly negatively correlated with the loss probability in compulsory automobile liability insurance. The average loss probability decreases by 0.23 percent when the insured vehicle is properly maintained according to the recommended number of kilometers in the previous years, whereas the average loss probability for the overall sample is 0.49 percent. We further find that proper maintenance is insignificantly correlated with loss severity.     

社会互动与健康保险购买意愿关系研究

本文系统检验了社会互动对受访者购买健康保险意愿的影响。结果表明:网络互动和传统互动均显著提高消费者为自己购买健康保险的意愿,而且网络互动的影响力更大;网络互动对为父母健康保险的购买意愿没有解释力,传统互动则显著提高了消费者为父母购买健康保险的意愿。本文在检验影响健康保险购买意愿的传统因素之外,重点关注社会互动的影响,为分析个体的保险决策提供新的视角。     

Do Property–Casualty Insurance Firms Locate to Minimize Insurance Premium Taxes?

States levy insurance premium taxes, which are essentially gross receipt taxes on premiums, with insurance companies paying the higher of the tax rate in the state in which the company is domiciled and the state in which the policy is written. Using firm‐level data for the property–casualty (P‐C) insurance industry, we estimate the extra insurance premium tax that P‐C insurance firms pay by not locating in the state that minimizes their insurance premium taxes. We find that only 4.78 percent of P‐C firms are located in the state that minimizes their insurance premium taxes. We explore the relationship between the extra tax paid and other factors that are thought to be associated with firm location choice. We find that P‐C firms appear to trade off higher taxes to locate in a state that is more urban.     

“Skewness and Stock Option Prices”, Hans Gerber and Bruno Landry,July 1997

We determine the optimal amount of life insurance for a household of two wage earners. We consider the simple case of exponential utility, thereby removing wealth as a factor in buying life insurance, while retaining the relationship among life insurance, income, and the probability of dying and thus losing that income. For insurance purchased via a single premium or premium payable continuously, we explicitly determine the optimal death benefit. We show that if the premium is determined to target a specific probability of loss per policy, then the rates of consumption are identical under single premium or continuously payable premium. Thus, not only is equivalence of consumption achieved for the households under the two premium schemes, it is also obtained for the insurance company in the sense of equivalence of loss probabilities.     

A path analysis investigation of the relationships between CEO pay ratios and firm performance mediated by employee satisfaction

We posit that information about CEO pay ratios is important to investors because employees' perceived fairness of their firm’s CEO pay ratio has consequences for firm performance. We use path analysis to examine the association between firm performance and (1) the predicted CEO pay ratio as determined by economic factors (the fair component of CEO pay ratio) and (2) the predicted CEO pay ratio as determined by non-economic factors (the unfair component of CEO pay ratio). We test for the existence and relative importance of direct and indirect paths using two measures of employee satisfaction and two measures of firm performance. We find that pay equity, a larger CEO pay ratio driven by economic factors, is associated with employee contributions to better firm performance. Conversely, we show that pay inequity, a larger CEO pay ratio driven by non-economic factors, is associated with employees' contributions to poorer firm performance. Consistent with the view that managerial entrenchment may amplify the negative effects of the CEO pay ratio, we find that the negative indirect path between pay inequity and firm performance, mediated by employee satisfaction, is more pronounced in firms with entrenched CEOs. Our findings contribute to the accounting compensation literature because they are consistent with CEO pay ratio information having economic consequences.     

Lessons from the Financial Crisis on Risk and Capital Management: The Case of Insurance Companies

This article proposes that risk management be viewed as an integral part of the corporate value‐creation process— one in which the concept of economic capital can provide companies with the financial cushion and confidence to carry out their strategic plans. Using the case of insurance and reinsurance companies, the authors discuss three main ways that the integration of risk and capital management creates value:

• 1 strengthening solvency (by limiting the probability of financial distress);
• 2 increasing prospects for profitable growth (by preserving access to capital during post‐loss periods); and
• 3 improving transparency (by increasing the “information content” or “signaling power” of reported earnings).

Insurers can manage solvency risk by using Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) models to limit the probability of financial distress to levels consistent with the firm's specified risk tolerance. While ERM models are effective in managing “known” risks, we discuss three practices widely used in the insurance industry to manage “unknown” and “unknowable” risks using the logic of real options—slack, mutualization, and incomplete contracts. Second, risk management can create value by securing sources of capital that, like contingent capital, can be used to fund profitable growth opportunities that tend to arise in periods following large losses. Finally, the authors argue that risk management can raise the confidence of investors in their estimates of future growth by removing the “noise” in earnings that comes from bearing non‐core risks, thereby making current earnings a more reliable guide to future earnings. In support of this possibility, the authors provide evidence showing that, for a given level of reported return on equity (ROE), (re)insurers with more stable ROEs have higher price‐to‐book ratios, suggesting investors' willingness to pay a premium for the stability provided by risk management.     

A note on increased probability of loss and the demand for insurance

It is shown that the effect of increased probability of loss on the demand for insurance depends on whether both insured and insurer are aware of the change. When both insurer and insured share the same beliefs about the probability of loss (symmetric information), an increase in the loss probability may lead risk-averse agents to demandless insurance.     

Revealing the willingness to pay for income insurance in agriculture

In spite of its minor and decreasing share in EU GDP, agriculture still plays a fundamental and strategic role in the economy. This is why EU institutions have supported for decades a series of policies to guarantee a stable agricultural income, including insurance. With different degrees of public support, insurance policies covering an increasing number of risks have been developed across the EU. Eventually, EU institutions have started to encourage the development of income insurance. Income insurance covers more risks and has higher uncertainty and costs than conventional single risk or combined yield insurance. Assessing and enhancing the viability of income insurance demands an in depth knowledge of farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for this product. This study develops a methodology to calculate the WTP for different degrees of income protection using a revealed preference model and the certainty equivalent theory. The methodology is applied in a drought prone area in southeastern Spain. Results show that WTP for income insurance in the area is higher than observed insurance premiums. This may play in favor of the development of more comprehensive income insurance systems.     

Rural Homeowners’ Willingness to Buy Flood Insurance

Houses are the primary asset for Chinese rural families. However, dramatically increasing frequency and severity of floods have caused significant loss in rural houses recently, and there is generally no insurance available. In this article, we investigate the rural residents’ willingness to buy insurance according to a national survey. The results show that there exists a strong need for flood insurance in rural China, and the influencing factors in the insurance demand include the recent frequency of floods, income, and past experience with lack of flood insurance. Policy suggestions for flood insurance are provided for the insurance industry and Chinese government.