Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Insurance Market (insurance + market)
Kinds of Insurance Market Selected AbstractsEfficient Monopolies: The Limits of Competition in the European Property Insurance Market.ECONOMICA, Issue 291 2006By THOMAS VON UNGERN-STERNBERG No abstract is available for this article. [source] SCHIP's Impact on Dependent Coverage in the Small-Group Health Insurance MarketHEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010Eric E. Seiber Objective. To estimate the impact of State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansions on public and private coverage of dependents at small firms compared with large firms. Data Sources. 1996,2007 Annual Demographic Survey of the Current Population Survey (CPS). Study Design. This study estimates a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model for four insurance outcomes that instruments for SCHIP and Medicaid eligibility. Separate models are estimated for small group markets (firms with fewer than 25 employees), small businesses (firms under 500 employees), and large firms (firms 500 employees and above). Data Collection/Extraction Methods. We extracted data from the 1996,2007 CPS for children in households with at least one worker. Principal Findings. The SCHIP expansions decreased the percentage of uninsured dependents in the small group market by 7.6 percentage points with negligible crowd-out in the small group and no significant effect on private coverage across the 11-year-period. Conclusions. The SCHIP expansions have increased coverage for households in the small group market with no significant crowd-out of private coverage. In contrast, the estimates for large firms are consistent with the substantial crowd-out observed in the literature. [source] The Adequacy of Household Survey Data for Evaluating the Nongroup Health Insurance MarketHEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 4 2007Joel C. Cantor Objective. To evaluate the accuracy of household survey estimates of the size and composition of the nonelderly population covered by nongroup health insurance. Data Sources/Study Setting. Health insurance enrollment statistics reported to New Jersey insurance regulators. Household data from the following sources: the 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS)-March Demographic Supplement, the 1997 and 1999 National Surveys of America's Families (NSAF), the 2001 New Jersey Family Health Survey (NJFHS), a 2002 survey of known nongroup health insurance enrollees, a small 2004 survey testing alternative health insurance question wording. Study Design. To assess the extent of bias in estimates of the size of the nongroup health insurance market in New Jersey, enrollment trends are compared between official enrollment statistics reported by insurance carriers to state insurance regulators with estimates from three general population household surveys. Next, to evaluate possible bias in the demographic and socioeconomic composition of the New Jersey nongroup market, distributions of characteristics of the enrolled population are contrasted among general household surveys and a survey of known nongroup subscribers. Finally, based on inferences drawn from these comparisons, alternative health insurance question wording was developed and tested in a local survey to test the potential for misreporting enrollment in nongroup coverage in a low-income population. Data Collection/Extraction Methods. Data for nonelderly New Jersey residents from the 2002 CPS (n=5,028) and the 1997 and 1999 NSAF (n=6,467 and 7,272, respectively) were obtained from public sources. The 2001 NJFHS (n=5,580 nonelderly) was conducted for a sample drawn by random digit dialing and employed computer-assisted telephone interviews and trained, professional interviewers. Sampling weights are used to adjust for under-coverage of households without telephones and other factors. In addition, a modified version of the NJFHS was administered to a 2002 sample of known nongroup subscribers (n=1,398) using the same field methods. These lists were provided by four of the five largest New Jersey nongroup insurance carriers, which represented 95 percent of all nongroup enrollees in the state. Finally, a modified version of the NJFHS questionnaire was fielded using similar methods as part of a local health survey in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 2004 (n=1,460 nonelderly). Principal Findings. General household sample surveys, including the widely used CPS, yield substantially higher estimates of nongroup enrollment compared with administrative totals and yield estimates of the characteristics of the nongroup population that vary greatly from a survey of known nongroup subscribers. A small survey testing a question about source of payment for direct-purchased coverage suggests than many public coverage enrollees report nongroup coverage. Conclusions. Nongroup health insurance has been subject to more than a decade of reform and is of continuing policy interest. Comparisons of unique data from a survey of known nongroup subscribers and administrative sources to household surveys strongly suggest that the latter overstates the number and misrepresent the composition of the nongroup population. Research on the nongroup market using available sources should be interpreted cautiously and survey methods should be reexamined. [source] The Role of Independent Agents in the Success of Health Insurance Market ReformsTHE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2000Mark A. Hall The impact of reforms on the health insurance markets cannot be understood without more information about the role played by insurance agents and a closer analysis of their contribution. An in-depth, qualitative study of insurance-market reforms in seven illustrative states forms the basis for this report on how agents help to shape the efficiency and fairness of insurance markets. Different types of agents relate to insurers in their own ways and are compensated differently. This study shows agents to be almost uniformly enthusiastic about guaranteed-issue requirements and other components of market reforms. Although insurers devise strategies for manipulating agents in order to avoid undesirable business, these opportunities are limited and do not appear to be seriously undermining the effectiveness of market reforms. Despite the layer of cost that agents add to the system, they play an important role in making market reforms work, and they fill essential information and service functions for which many purchasers have no ready substitute. [source] Insurance Markets With Differential InformationJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 2 2009S. Hun Seog This article attempts to understand the outcomes when each party of an insurance contract simultaneously has superior information. I assume that policyholders have superior information about specific risks while insurers have superior information about general risks. I find that low-general-risk policyholders purchase insurance, while high-general-risk policyholders are self-insured. Among the low-general-risk policyholders, high-specific-risk policyholders purchase full insurance, while low-specific-risk policyholders purchase partial insurance. When insurers can strategically publicize their information, efficiency is improved because high-general-risk policyholders purchase actuarially fair insurance. The market segmentation is also found based on the general-risk type and the publicizing of information. [source] The Adequacy of Household Survey Data for Evaluating the Nongroup Health Insurance MarketHEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 4 2007Joel C. Cantor Objective. To evaluate the accuracy of household survey estimates of the size and composition of the nonelderly population covered by nongroup health insurance. Data Sources/Study Setting. Health insurance enrollment statistics reported to New Jersey insurance regulators. Household data from the following sources: the 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS)-March Demographic Supplement, the 1997 and 1999 National Surveys of America's Families (NSAF), the 2001 New Jersey Family Health Survey (NJFHS), a 2002 survey of known nongroup health insurance enrollees, a small 2004 survey testing alternative health insurance question wording. Study Design. To assess the extent of bias in estimates of the size of the nongroup health insurance market in New Jersey, enrollment trends are compared between official enrollment statistics reported by insurance carriers to state insurance regulators with estimates from three general population household surveys. Next, to evaluate possible bias in the demographic and socioeconomic composition of the New Jersey nongroup market, distributions of characteristics of the enrolled population are contrasted among general household surveys and a survey of known nongroup subscribers. Finally, based on inferences drawn from these comparisons, alternative health insurance question wording was developed and tested in a local survey to test the potential for misreporting enrollment in nongroup coverage in a low-income population. Data Collection/Extraction Methods. Data for nonelderly New Jersey residents from the 2002 CPS (n=5,028) and the 1997 and 1999 NSAF (n=6,467 and 7,272, respectively) were obtained from public sources. The 2001 NJFHS (n=5,580 nonelderly) was conducted for a sample drawn by random digit dialing and employed computer-assisted telephone interviews and trained, professional interviewers. Sampling weights are used to adjust for under-coverage of households without telephones and other factors. In addition, a modified version of the NJFHS was administered to a 2002 sample of known nongroup subscribers (n=1,398) using the same field methods. These lists were provided by four of the five largest New Jersey nongroup insurance carriers, which represented 95 percent of all nongroup enrollees in the state. Finally, a modified version of the NJFHS questionnaire was fielded using similar methods as part of a local health survey in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 2004 (n=1,460 nonelderly). Principal Findings. General household sample surveys, including the widely used CPS, yield substantially higher estimates of nongroup enrollment compared with administrative totals and yield estimates of the characteristics of the nongroup population that vary greatly from a survey of known nongroup subscribers. A small survey testing a question about source of payment for direct-purchased coverage suggests than many public coverage enrollees report nongroup coverage. Conclusions. Nongroup health insurance has been subject to more than a decade of reform and is of continuing policy interest. Comparisons of unique data from a survey of known nongroup subscribers and administrative sources to household surveys strongly suggest that the latter overstates the number and misrepresent the composition of the nongroup population. Research on the nongroup market using available sources should be interpreted cautiously and survey methods should be reexamined. [source] Adverse Selection With Frequency and Severity Risk: Alternative Risk-Sharing ProvisionsJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 4 2008James A. Ligon The analysis considers an insurance market with adverse selection where individuals' loss distributions may differ with respect to both the frequency and severity of loss. We show that the combination of deductibles and coinsurance can be used to sort rationed policyholders. Because of their screening properties, coinsurance and deductibles may both be equilibrium forms of risk sharing for a particular insurer facing asymmetric information, with different rationed consumers choosing different risk-sharing provisions. [source] Natural Disaster Insurance and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-OffJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 1 2008Pierre Picard This article investigates the role of private insurance in the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters. We characterize the equity-efficiency trade-off faced by the policymakers under imperfect information about individual prevention costs. It is shown that a competitive insurance market with actuarial rate making and compensatory tax-subsidy transfers is likely to dominate regulated uniform insurance pricing rules or state-funded assistance schemes. The model illustrates how targeted tax cuts on insurance contracts can improve the incentives to prevention while compensating individuals with high prevention costs. The article highlights the complementarity between individual incentives through tax cuts and collective incentives through grants to the local jurisdictions where risk management plans are enforced. [source] Damages Caps, Insurability, and the Performance of Medical Malpractice InsuranceJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 1 2005W. Kip Viscusi This article uses the complete property-casualty insurance files of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners from 1984 to 1991 to assess the effect of medical malpractice reforms pertaining to damages levels and the degree to which these damages are insurable. Limits on noneconomic damages were most influential in affecting insurance market outcomes. Several punitive damages variables specifically affected the medical malpractice insurance market, including limits on punitive damage levels, prohibitions of the insurability of punitive damages, and prohibition of punitive damages awards. Estimates for insurance losses, premiums, and loss ratios indicate effects of reform in the expected directions, where the greatest constraining effects were for losses. The quantile regression analysis of losses indicates that punitive damages reforms and limits were most consequential for firms at the high end of the loss spectrum. Tort reforms also enhanced insurer profitability during this time period. [source] The Impact of Insurance Prices on Decision Making Biases: An Experimental AnalysisJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 2 2003Susan K. Laury This article tests whether the use of endogenous risk categorization by insurers enables consumers to make better-informed decisions even if they do not choose to purchase insurance. We do so by adding a simple insurance market to an experimental test of optimal (Bayesian) updating. In some sessions, no insurance is offered. In others, actuarially fair insurance prices are posted, and a subset of subjects is allowed to purchase this insurance. We find significant differences in the decision rules used depending on whether one observes insurance prices. Although the majority of choices correspond to Bayesian updating, the incidence of optimal decisions is higher in sessions with an insurance option. Most subjects given the option to purchase actuarially fair insurance choose to do so. However, fewer subjects purchase insurance when the probability of a loss is higher. [source] Diversification of rural livelihood strategies and its effect on local landscape restoration in the semiarid hilly area of the Loess Plateau, ChinaLAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2010L. Wang Abstract This study is about the diversification of livelihood strategies and the interaction of farmers' livelihood with landscape change in Zhongzhuang small watershed, Pengyang County in Ningxia Autonomous region located in the Loess Plateau, western China. Farmers' livelihoods and landscape patterns during 1978,2007 in Zhongzhuang were analysed. In different stages, diverse limiting factors were discovered behind the diversification process of livelihood strategies. Before 1978, ,planned economy', ,production team organization', strict ,household registration system' and the scarcity of livelihood assets were the main factors restricting the diversification of livelihood strategies. From 1978 to 1993, the reform and open policy provided opportunities for local people to diversify their livelihood strategies, but livelihood strategies based on crop production still took an important role in their life. From 2000 to 2007, national policies brought assistance to help local farmers diversify their agricultural activities. However, the insufficient and incomplete credit and insurance market and lack of skill were the main factors constraining non-farm activity diversification. Meanwhile, through analysis of the links between livelihood strategies diversification and landscape pattern change, we found that diversification of farmers' livelihoods contributed to the recovery of the landscape. Finally, using this relationship, steps for future landscape restoration is proposed, which provide a new view of landscape restoration research in the Loess Plateau. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Die Vorteile des Staatsmonopols in der Gebäudeversicherung: Erfahrungen aus Deutschland und der SchweizPERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 1 2001Thomas Von Ungern-Sternberg This paper compares the prices charged and the quality of service provided by state monopolies and private insurance companies on the property insurance market. Both the cross-section data from Switzerland and the time-series evidence from Germany strongly suggest that in this specific market the presence of state monopolies is very advantageous for the customers. This raises the question why German academic economists made practically no effort to defend their state insurance monopolies in the debate about the 3rd EU directive on property insurance. Is it possible that peer pressure prevents academic economists from standing up to defend state monopolies, even if these are clearly to the benefit of consumers? [source] New Directions for Health Insurance Design: Implications for Public Health Policy and PracticeTHE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 2003Sara Rosenbaum ABSTRACT National attention on issues of public health preparedness necessarily brings into sharp focus the question of how to assure adequate, community-wide health care financing for preventive, acute care, and long-term medical care responses to public health threats. In the U.S., public and private health insurance represents the principal means by which medical care is financed. Beyond the threshold challenge of the many persons without any, or a stable form of, coverage lie challenges related to the structure and characteristics of health insurance itself, particularly the commercial industry and its newly emerging market of consumer-driven health plans. States vary significantly in how they approach the regulation of insurance and in their willingness to support various types of insurance markets. This variation is attributable to the size and robustness of the insurance market, the political environment, and regulatory tradition and custom. Reconciling health insurance markets with public health-related health care financing needs arising from public health threats should be viewed as a major dimension of national health reform. [source] Employers' Benefits from Workers' Health InsuranceTHE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2003Ellen O'Brien Most nonelderly americans receive their health insurance coverage through their workplace. Almost all large firms offer a health insurance plan, and even though they face greater barriers to providing coverage, so do the majority of very small firms. These employment-based plans cover two-thirds of nonelderly Americans and pay most of working families' expenses for health care and about one-quarter of national health spending. Despite employers' role in the health insurance market, however, very little attention has been paid to employers' motivations for providing health insurance to workers. Why do employers offer health insurance to workers? Is it because workers want it? Because their unions demand it? Or do employers offer health benefits to workers because their productivity and profitability depend on it? The standard economic theory of the availability of employer-provided health insurance focuses on worker demand (Cutler 1997; Pauly 1997; Summers 1989). Even though many employers believe that health insurance and health affect employees' productivity and firms' performance, health economists typically overlook and rarely measure firms' returns on health-related investments. Some research, however, suggests that firms may benefit economically by providing health insurance coverage for workers and their families. For example, health coverage may help employers recruit and retain high-quality workers. Health may contribute to productivity by reducing the costs of absenteeism and turnover and by increasing workers' productivity. This article reviews the evidence and proposes an agenda for future research. A better understanding of the benefits to employers of offering health coverage to workers may help clarify employers' behavior and help private employers and public officials make appropriate investments in health. [source] Firm Size Distribution in Small SamplesBULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 4 2004Luigi Buzzacchi D40; L11; G22 Abstract Sutton (1998) has recently proposed a theoretical lower bound to firm size inequality when a market is made of several independent submarkets. His results are valid asymptotically, as the number of submarkets becomes arbitrarily large. We show that, in small samples, his results can be interpreted as a positive relationship between an index of firm size inequality and the number of submarkets. We also test this relationship in the Italian motor insurance market. [source] Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?ECONOMETRICA, Issue 2 2002Roland Bénabou This paper studies the effects of progressive income taxes and education finance in a dynamic heterogeneous-agent economy. Such redistributive policies entail distortions to labor supply and savings, but also serve as partial substitutes for missing credit and insurance markets. The resulting tradeoffs for growth and efficiency are explored, both theoretically and quantitatively, in a model that yields complete analytical solutions. Progressive education finance always leads to higher income growth than taxes and transfers, but at the cost of lower insurance. Overall efficiency is assessed using a new measure that properly reflects aggregate resources and idiosyncratic risks but, unlike a standard social welfare function, does not reward equality per se. Simulations using empirical parameter estimates show that the efficiency costs and benefits of redistribution are generally of the same order of magnitude, resulting in plausible values for the optimal rates. Aggregate income and aggregate welfare provide only crude lower and upper bounds around the true efficiency tradeoff. [source] Ageing and unused capacity in Europe: is there an early retirement trap?ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 59 2009Viola Angelini Summary We address the issue of how early retirement may interact with limited use of financial markets in producing financial hardship later in life, when some risks (such as long-term care) are not insured. We argue that the presence of financially attractive early retirement schemes in a world of imperfect financial and insurance markets can lead to an ,early retirement trap'. Indeed, Europe witnesses many (early) retired individuals in financial distress. In our analysis we use data on 10 European countries, which differ in their pension and welfare systems, in prevailing retirement age and in households' access to financial markets. We find evidence that an early retirement trap exists, particularly in some Southern and Central European countries: people who retired early in life are more likely to be in financial hardship in the long run. Our analysis implies that governments should stop making early retirement attractive, let retirees go back to work, improve access to financial markets and make sure long-term care problems are adequately insured. , Viola Angelini, Agar Brugiavini and Guglielmo Weber [source] Time Deductibles as Screening Devices: Competitive MarketsJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 2 2009Jaap Spreeuw Seminal papers on asymmetric information in competitive insurance markets, analyzing the monetary deductible as a screening device, show that any existing equilibrium is of a separating type. High risks buy complete insurance, whereas low risks buy partial insurance,and this result holds for the Nash behavior as well as for the Wilson foresight. In this article, we analyze the strength of screening based on limitations to the period of coverage of the contract. We show that in this case (1) the Nash equilibrium may entail low risks not purchasing any insurance at all, and (2) under the Wilson foresight, a pooling equilibrium may exist. [source] Dynamic Insurance Contracts and Adverse SelectionJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 1 2005Maarten C. W. Janssen We take a dynamic perspective on insurance markets under adverse selection and study a dynamic version of the Rothschild and Stiglitz model. We investigate the nature of dynamic insurance contracts by considering both conditional and unconditional dynamic contracts. An unconditional dynamic contract has insurance companies offering contracts where the terms of the contract depend on time, but not on the occurrence of past accidents. Conditional dynamic contracts make the actual contract also depend on individual past performance (such as in car insurances). We show that dynamic insurance contracts yield a welfare improvement only if they are conditional on past performance. With conditional contracts, the first-best can be approximated if the contract lasts long. Moreover, this is true for any fraction of low-risk agents in the population. [source] Wettbewerb in kapitalgedeckten Krankenversicherungssystemen: Ein risikogerechter Ansatz zur Übertragung von Alterungsrückstellungen in der Privaten KrankenversicherungPERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 2 2008Martin Nell Therefore the transfer of ,individual ageing provisions, has been discussed for many years, but it is mostly regarded as impracticable due to information and incentive problems. In this article a transfer mechanism based consequently on the risk allocation in the PKV is derived. This mechanism can solve the information and incentive problems linked with the transfer of ageing provisions. The result is that the PKV can be extended to a very attractive model to organize health insurance markets. [source] New Directions for Health Insurance Design: Implications for Public Health Policy and PracticeTHE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 2003Sara Rosenbaum ABSTRACT National attention on issues of public health preparedness necessarily brings into sharp focus the question of how to assure adequate, community-wide health care financing for preventive, acute care, and long-term medical care responses to public health threats. In the U.S., public and private health insurance represents the principal means by which medical care is financed. Beyond the threshold challenge of the many persons without any, or a stable form of, coverage lie challenges related to the structure and characteristics of health insurance itself, particularly the commercial industry and its newly emerging market of consumer-driven health plans. States vary significantly in how they approach the regulation of insurance and in their willingness to support various types of insurance markets. This variation is attributable to the size and robustness of the insurance market, the political environment, and regulatory tradition and custom. Reconciling health insurance markets with public health-related health care financing needs arising from public health threats should be viewed as a major dimension of national health reform. [source] The Role of Independent Agents in the Success of Health Insurance Market ReformsTHE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2000Mark A. Hall The impact of reforms on the health insurance markets cannot be understood without more information about the role played by insurance agents and a closer analysis of their contribution. An in-depth, qualitative study of insurance-market reforms in seven illustrative states forms the basis for this report on how agents help to shape the efficiency and fairness of insurance markets. Different types of agents relate to insurers in their own ways and are compensated differently. This study shows agents to be almost uniformly enthusiastic about guaranteed-issue requirements and other components of market reforms. Although insurers devise strategies for manipulating agents in order to avoid undesirable business, these opportunities are limited and do not appear to be seriously undermining the effectiveness of market reforms. Despite the layer of cost that agents add to the system, they play an important role in making market reforms work, and they fill essential information and service functions for which many purchasers have no ready substitute. [source] Asymmetric information in insurance: general testable implicationsTHE RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2006Pierre-André Chiappori Several recent articles on empirical contract theory and insurance have tested for a positive correlation between coverage and ex post risk, as predicted by standard models of pure adverse selection or pure moral hazard. We show here that the positive correlationproperty can be extended to general setups: competitive insurance markets and cases where risk aversion is public. We test our results on a French dataset. Our tests confirm that the estimated correlation is positive; they also suggest the presence of market power. [source] | |||||||||||||