Exclusions and the Demand for Property Insurance

The paper examines property insurance contracts in which consumers choose the upper limit on coverage. Exclusions are of two types, and both reduce the demand for insurance of the included perils. A practical implication is that an insurer can raise the demand for fire insurance by offering an earthquake rider, and profit from the rider even when the premia are ceded in such a way that the rider does not raise profit directly. The results do not require assumptions about correlations between included and excluded losses, which is interesting because correlations are decisive in most of the other literature on background risk.     

Flood Insurance Coverage in the Coastal Zone

We explore determinants of flood insurance demand in the coastal zone using micro‐data for nine Southeastern counties. Overall estimates indicate price inelastic demand, though subsidized policyholders have greater coverage and are more price sensitive. Mortgage borrowers exhibit no greater coverage; only 12 percent in 100‐year flood zone indicate flood insurance was required by their lender. Flood insurance demand is increasing in the levels of flood and erosion risk. We find a positive correlation between household income and coverage, but the effect is not monotonic. Community‐level erosion hazard mitigation projects influence flood insurance coverage, with beach replenishment acting as a complement.     

The Price Elasticity of Demand for Whole Life Insurance

In this study a real price index is created for whole life insurance sold in the United States from 1953 to 1979. New purchases of whole life insurance are shown to be negatively related to changes in this cost index, contrary to what has been widely accepted in the insurance literature, but consistent with economic theory. The existence of strong price elasticity of demand for whole life insurance does not ensure, however, that the insurance industry manifests a high degree of price competition.     

Homeowners Insurance With Bundled Catastrophe Coverage

We estimate the demand for homeowners insurance in Florida and New York with indicated loss costs as our proxy for the quantity of real insurance services demanded. We decompose the demand into the demand for coverage of catastrophe perils and the demand for noncatastrophe coverage and estimate these demand functions separately. Our results are relatively consistent in New York and Florida, including evidence that catastrophe demand is more price elastic than noncatastrophe demand. We also find evidence that consumers value options that expand coverage, buy more insurance when it is subsidized through regulatory price constraints, and consider state guaranty fund provisions when purchasing insurance.     

Wealth, Income, and Optimal Insurance

This article considers the decision to purchase insurance against possible losses of a property or wealth. The decision involves a standard economic trade‐off between the benefit of protection against loss and the cost of insurance premium. The premium is paid out of the income and decreases the consumption of other goods and services, rather than out of wealth and decreases the property or wealth. The demand for insurance depends mainly on the income and preferences. As a result, unlike in the standard model, a fair premium is neither necessary nor sufficient for the optimality of full coverage insurance. Rather, the individuals with higher incomes purchase full coverage insurance even at unfair prices of insurance while the individuals with lower income purchase partial coverage insurance at a fair price.     

A Gentle Introduction to Risk Aversion and Utility Theory

While the topics of risk aversion and utility theory have been discussed extensively in the academic literature on risk and insurance, this literature does not include a pedagogical discussion that is widely accessible for classroom use. This article provides a practical introduction to risk aversion that is designed for readers with little prerequisite course work in economics or statistics. We describe a simple model of insurance demand that can be applied to the property, liability, life, and health insurance markets. We also demonstrate how risk aversion affects a variety of real-life insurance decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, including how much the market will bear to pay for insurance administrative expenses and how demand varies for different types of auto insurance coverage. Exercises and practice problems are provided so that readers can test their mastery of the concepts presented in the article. An instructional note on using this article to teach risk aversion in the classroom is also provided.     

Guaranteed renewable life insurance under demand uncertainty

Guaranteed renewability (GR) is a prominent feature in many health and life insurance markets. We develop a model that includes unpredictable (and unobservable) fluctuations in demand for life insurance as well as changes in risk type (observable) over individuals' lifetimes. The presence of demand type heterogeneity leads to the possibility that optimal GR contracts may have a renewal price that is either above or below the actuarially fair price of the lowest risk type in the population. Individuals whose type turns out to be high risk but low demand renew more of their GR insurance than is efficient due to the attractive renewal price. This results in imperfect insurance against reclassification risk. Although a first‐best efficient contract is not possible in the presence of demand type heterogeneity, the presence of GR contracts nonetheless improves welfare relative to an environment with only spot markets.     

Financing and the demand for corporate insurance

In this paper we examine the insurance decision of a firm with private information regarding its cash flows and insurable losses. We show that, even in the absence of bankruptcy costs and information production by insurers, the firm's attempts to hedge its information risk can induce it to demand insurance. If higher operating revenues are accompanied by a lower insurance risk, the firm will choose to self-insure. In contrast, if higher operating revenues are accompanied by a higher insurance risk, the firm will demand insurance. In fact, if its insurable losses are relatively small, the firm will fully insure its losses. Further, if there exists considerable uncertainty regarding the firm's insurance risk, the level of coverage demanded by the firm is dependent on its private information, with higher levels of coverage signaling favorable information regarding the firm's future operations.     

Optimal Loss Mitigation and Contract Design

This work examines the interaction between the premium rates set by an insurer and the incentives of an individual to purchase market insurance and undertake mitigation to reduce the size of a potential loss. A risk‐neutral monopolistic insurer prices insurance according to the price‐elasticity of demand for coverage. The elasticity of demand is affected by the presence of both mitigation and government intervention. The availability of loss reduction activities increases the consumer's elasticity of demand and lowers the optimal rate charged by the monopolist. Government intervention reduces both expenditures on mitigation and the rate charged by the monopolistic insurer.     

Equity Risk, Conversion Risk, and the Demand for Insurance

Existing insurance theory fails when applied to real property because it does not account for variations in the economic environment. The article studies optimal property insurance in the presence of two sources of variation: equity risk and conversion risk. Equity risk is randomness of the value of a property. It tends to raise demand for conventional insurance. In contrast, conversion risk is randomness in the value the property would have if, after severe damage, it were converted to the highest‐valued use. It is distinct from equity risk because the highest‐valued use is typically not the current one. Under independent conversion risk, the optimum upper limit is a compromise among underlying conversion thresholds. Absent independence, the optimum can be quite different. Conversion risk can raise or lower the demand for property insurance. Insurance contracts that fail to address conversion tend to undermine the orderly disposition of obligations and reduce the gains from reallocation of risks through insurance.     

Directors' and officers' liability insurance and loan spreads

We analyze the effect of directors' and officers' liability insurance (D&O insurance) on the spreads charged on bank loans. We find that higher levels of D&O insurance coverage are associated with higher loan spreads and that this relation depends on loan characteristics in economically sensible ways and is attenuated by monitoring mechanisms. This association between loan spreads and D&O insurance coverage is robust to controlling for endogeneity (because both could be related to firm risk). Our evidence suggests that lenders view D&O insurance coverage as increasing credit risk (potentially via moral hazard or information asymmetry). Further analyses show that higher levels of D&O insurance coverage are associated with greater risk taking and higher probabilities of financial restatement due to aggressive financial reporting. While greater use of D&O insurance increases the cost of debt, we find some evidence that D&O insurance coverage appears to improve the value of large increases in capital expenditure for firms with better internal and external governance.     

Strategic Demand for Insurance

We focus on the corporate demand for insurance under duopoly. We consider the case in which firms purchase insurance in order to enhance their competitiveness. We show that a higher level of corporate insurance makes a firm more aggressive and its competitor less aggressive in the output market (strategic effect). The optimal coverage of insurance is determined by comparing the strategic effect of insurance and the cost of insurance. The optimal coverage is positive if the strategic effect is greater than the cost of insurance. An interesting implication is that a risk‐neutral firm may purchase actuarially unfair insurance. The main strategic effect of insurance comes from the fact that firms purchase insurance before they produce outputs. Insurance makes firms more aggressive due to the limited risk costs of firms.     

The Aggregate Demand for Private Health Insurance Coverage in the United States

This article estimates the aggregate demand for private health insurance coverage in the United States using an error correction model for the period 1966–1999. Both short- and long-run price and income elasticities of demand are estimated. The empirical findings indicate that both private insurance enrollment and the completeness of insurance are relatively inelastic with respect to changes in price and income in the short and long run. Moreover, the results suggest that an increase in the number cyclically and frictionally uninsured generates less welfare loss than an increase in the number of structurally uninsured.     

Raising Capital in an Insurance Oligopoly Market

We consider an oligopoly market where firms offer insurance coverage against a risk characterised by aggregate uncertainty. Firms behave as if they were risk averse for a standard reason of costly external finance. The model consists in a two-stage game where firms choose their internal capital level at stage one and compete on price at stage two. We characterise the subgame perfect Nash equilibria of this game and focus attention on the strategic impact of insurers capital choice. We discuss the model with regard to the insurance industry specificities and regulation.     

乐观预期、保障能力与商业保险购买——来自中国家庭的微观证据

本文基于中国家庭微观调查数据,在考虑商业保险“保障”和“投资”双重属性的前提下,实证研究了乐观预期对家庭商业保险购买的影响。结果发现,乐观预期对家庭商业保险购买存在显著的积极影响,即户主乐观预期程度越高,家庭购买商业保险的意愿越强。进一步区分保障型商业保险和投资型商业保险,发现乐观预期对商业保险购买的积极影响主要来自对投资型商业保险的需求,对保障型商业保险购买的影响则不显著。更重要地,不同风险保障能力下乐观预期对商业保险购买存在异质性影响,家庭储蓄较多、社会保障覆盖较好以及社会资本水平较高的家庭,乐观预期对商业保险购买的积极影响更大。本研究不仅有助于从预期视角理解商业保险市场的“有限参与”之谜,也为提升家庭风险保障和财富增值能力提供了借鉴。     

The art of risk management: the crucial role of the global art insurance industry in enabling risk and security

This article investigates the under-researched sphere of insurance. It uses empirical research data to focus on one case study, the London art world, to analyse how the global art insurance industry ‘does’ security and how it enables risk and security to be embraced. Examining how the industry plays a crucial role in the security of art and within the art world itself, the article argues that the global art insurance industry’s role is largely beneficial for the art world because by enabling risk to be embraced through insurance, its pre-crime and post-crime responses, and its influence ‘beyond’ insurance, it emboldens and fuels the dynamic, thriving global art world.     

保险平滑政府自然灾害涉灾支出波动风险研究——以地震巨灾财政指数保险为例

我国重大自然灾害频发,导致政府财政救灾与灾后重建等涉灾支出波动较大,影响经济平稳运行,探索平滑财政涉灾支出波动风险的机制具有重要的现实意义.本文通过构建政府财政对地震巨灾救灾与重建支出负担积累模型,根据我国1990 ～2018年的地震损失数据,预测2019 ～2026年地震巨灾财政指数保险不同保险金额下,我国地震巨灾财...     

Reinsurance for Natural and Man-Made Catastrophes in the United States: Current State of the Market and Regulatory Reforms

U.S. insurers are heavily dependent on global reinsurance markets to enable them to provide adequate primary market insurance coverage. This article reviews the response of the world's reinsurance industry to recent mega-catastrophes and provides recommendations for regulatory reforms that would improve the efficiency of reinsurance markets. The article also considers the supply of insurance and reinsurance for terrorism and makes recommendations for joint public–private responses to insuring terrorism losses. The analysis shows that reinsurance markets responded efficiently to recent catastrophe losses and that substantial amounts of new capital enter the reinsurance industry very quickly following major catastrophic events. Considerable progress has been made in improving risk and exposure management, capital allocation, and rate of return targeting. Insurance price regulation for catastrophe-prone lines of business is a major source of inefficiency in insurance and reinsurance markets. Deregulation of insurance prices would improve the efficiency of insurance markets, enabling markets to deal more effectively with mega-catastrophes. The current inadequacy of the private terrorism reinsurance market suggests that the federal government may need to remain involved in this market, at least for the next several years.     

The Demand for Insurance With an Upper Limit on Coverage

The demand for insurance is examined when the indemnity schedule is subject to an upper limit. The optimal contract is shown to display full insurance above a deductible up to the cap. Some results derived in the standard model with no upper limit on coverage turn out to be invalid; the optimal deductible of an actuarially fair policy is positive and insurance may be a normal good under decreasing absolute risk aversion. An increase in the upper limit would induce the policyholder with constant absolute risk aversion to reduce his or her optimal deductible and therefore this would increase the demand for insurance against small losses.     

The Effects of Uncertainty on the Demand for Health Insurance

This article analyzes the effects of uncertainty and increases in risk aversion on the demand for health insurance using a theoretical model that highlights the interdependence between insurance and health care demand decisions. Two types of uncertainty faced by the individuals are examined. The first one is the uncertainty in the consumer's pretreatment health and the second is the uncertainty surrounding the productivity of health care. Comparative statics results are reported indicating the impact on the demand for insurance of shifts in the distributions of pretreatment health and productivity of health care in the form of first‐order stochastic dominance, Rothschild–Stiglitz mean‐preserving spreads, and second‐order stochastic dominance. The demand for insurance increases in response to a Rothschild–Stiglitz increase in risk in the distribution of the pretreatment health provided that the health production function is in a special class and the price elasticity of health care is nondecreasing in the pretreatment health. Provided also that the demand for health care is own‐price inelastic, the same conclusion is obtained when the uncertainty is about the productivity of health care.