IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/finsto/v27y2023i2d10.1007_s00780-023-00497-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal insurance under maxmin expected utility

Author

Listed:
  • Corina Birghila

    (Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg)

  • Tim J. Boonen

    (University of Amsterdam)

  • Mario Ghossoub

    (University of Waterloo)

Abstract

We examine a problem of demand for insurance indemnification, when the insured is sensitive to ambiguity and behaves according to the maxmin expected utility model of Gilboa and Schmeidler (J. Math. Econ. 18:141–153, 1989), whereas the insurer is a (risk-averse or risk-neutral) expected-utility maximiser. We characterise optimal indemnity functions both with and without the customary ex ante no-sabotage requirement on feasible indemnities, and for both concave and linear utility functions for the two agents. This allows us to provide a unifying framework in which we examine the effects of the no-sabotage condition, of marginal utility of wealth, of belief heterogeneity, as well as of ambiguity (multiplicity of priors) on the structure of optimal indemnity functions. In particular, we show how a singularity in beliefs leads to an optimal indemnity function that involves full insurance on an event to which the insurer assigns zero probability, while the decision maker assigns a positive probability. We examine several illustrative examples, and we provide numerical studies for the case of a Wasserstein and a Rényi ambiguity set.

Suggested Citation

  • Corina Birghila & Tim J. Boonen & Mario Ghossoub, 2023. "Optimal insurance under maxmin expected utility," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 467-501, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:finsto:v:27:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00780-023-00497-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s00780-023-00497-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00780-023-00497-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00780-023-00497-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Optimal insurance under rank-dependent expected utility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 51-66.
    2. Amarante, Massimiliano, 2014. "A characterization of exact non-atomic market games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 59-62.
    3. Zuo Quan Xu, 2018. "Pareto optimal moral-hazard-free insurance contracts in behavioral finance framework," Papers 1803.02546, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.
    4. Yaari, Menahem E, 1987. "The Dual Theory of Choice under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 95-115, January.
    5. Dimitris Bertsimas & Melvyn Sim, 2004. "The Price of Robustness," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 35-53, February.
    6. Chi, Yichun & Zhuang, Sheng Chao, 2022. "Regret-based optimal insurance design," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 22-41.
    7. Chi, Yichun, 2019. "On The Optimality Of A Straight Deductible Under Belief Heterogeneity," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 243-262, January.
    8. Ch. Pflug, Georg & Timonina-Farkas, Anna & Hochrainer-Stigler, Stefan, 2017. "Incorporating model uncertainty into optimal insurance contract design," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 68-74.
    9. Cheung, K.C. & Chong, W.F. & Yam, S.C.P., 2015. "The optimal insurance under disappointment theories," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 77-90.
    10. Dana, Rose-Anne & Scarsini, Marco, 2007. "Optimal risk sharing with background risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 152-176, March.
    11. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 805-824, December.
    12. Carole Bernard & Xuedong He & Jia-An Yan & Xun Yu Zhou, 2015. "Optimal Insurance Design Under Rank-Dependent Expected Utility," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 154-186, January.
    13. Furman, Edward & Zitikis, Ricardas, 2008. "Weighted premium calculation principles," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 459-465, February.
    14. Ka Chun Cheung & Wing Fung Chong & Ambrose Lo, 2019. "Budget-constrained optimal reinsurance design under coherent risk measures," Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2019(9), pages 729-751, October.
    15. Meglena Jeleva, 2000. "Background Risk, Demand for Insurance, and Choquet Expected Utility Preferences," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 25(1), pages 7-28, June.
    16. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    17. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2004. "Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 133-173, October.
    18. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    19. Alain Chateauneuf & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Jean-Marc Tallon, 2005. "Monotone continuous multiple priors," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(4), pages 973-982, November.
    20. G. C. Calafiore & L. El Ghaoui, 2006. "On Distributionally Robust Chance-Constrained Linear Programs," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 1-22, July.
    21. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    22. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    23. David E. Bell, 1982. "Regret in Decision Making under Uncertainty," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 961-981, October.
    24. MOSSIN, Jan, 1968. "Aspects of rational insurance purchasing," LIDAM Reprints CORE 23, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    25. Gur Huberman & David Mayers & Clifford W. Smith Jr., 1983. "Optimal Insurance Policy Indemnity Schedules," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 415-426, Autumn.
    26. Gul, Faruk, 1991. "A Theory of Disappointment Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 667-686, May.
    27. Birghila, Corina & Pflug, Georg Ch., 2019. "Optimal XL-insurance under Wasserstein-type ambiguity," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 30-43.
    28. Guillaume Carlier & Rose-Anne Dana, 2003. "Pareto efficient insurance contracts when the insurer's cost function is discontinuous," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 21(4), pages 871-893, June.
    29. Christian Gollier, 2014. "Optimal insurance design of ambiguous risks," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(3), pages 555-576, November.
    30. Assa, Hirbod, 2015. "On optimal reinsurance policy with distortion risk measures and premiums," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 70-75.
    31. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    32. Boonen, Tim J. & Ghossoub, Mario, 2021. "Optimal reinsurance with multiple reinsurers: Distortion risk measures, distortion premium principles, and heterogeneous beliefs," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(PA), pages 23-37.
    33. Philippe Artzner & Freddy Delbaen & Jean‐Marc Eber & David Heath, 1999. "Coherent Measures of Risk," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 203-228, July.
    34. Zhuang, Sheng Chao & Weng, Chengguo & Tan, Ken Seng & Assa, Hirbod, 2016. "Marginal Indemnification Function formulation for optimal reinsurance," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 65-76.
    35. Erick Delage & Yinyu Ye, 2010. "Distributionally Robust Optimization Under Moment Uncertainty with Application to Data-Driven Problems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 595-612, June.
    36. David Alary & Christian Gollier & Nicolas Treich, 2013. "The Effect of Ambiguity Aversion on Insurance and Self‐protection," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1188-1202, December.
    37. Jiang, Wenjun & Escobar-Anel, Marcos & Ren, Jiandong, 2020. "Optimal Insurance Contracts Under Distortion Risk Measures With Ambiguity Aversion," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 619-646, May.
    38. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Budget-constrained optimal insurance with belief heterogeneity," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 79-91.
    39. David Wozabal, 2012. "A framework for optimization under ambiguity," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 193(1), pages 21-47, March.
    40. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Budget-constrained optimal insurance without the nonnegativity constraint on indemnities," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 22-39.
    41. David E. Bell, 1985. "Disappointment in Decision Making Under Uncertainty," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 1-27, February.
    42. Thomas Breuer & Imre Csiszár, 2016. "Measuring Distribution Model Risk," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 395-411, April.
    43. Yichun Chi & Wei Wei, 2020. "Optimal insurance with background risk: An analysis of general dependence structures," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 903-937, October.
    44. Amarante, Massimiliano, 2009. "Foundations of neo-Bayesian statistics," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 2146-2173, September.
    45. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5394 is not listed on IDEAS
    46. A. Ben-Tal & A. Nemirovski, 1998. "Robust Convex Optimization," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 769-805, November.
    47. Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 1986. "Disappointment and Dynamic Consistency in Choice under Uncertainty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(2), pages 271-282.
    48. Edward Furman & Ričardas Zitikis, 2009. "Weighted Pricing Functionals With Applications to Insurance," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 483-496.
    49. Boonen, Tim J. & Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "On the existence of a representative reinsurer under heterogeneous beliefs," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 209-225.
    50. Furman, Edward & Zitikis, Ricardas, 2008. "Weighted risk capital allocations," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 263-269, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Corina Birghila & Tim J. Boonen & Mario Ghossoub, 2020. "Optimal Insurance under Maxmin Expected Utility," Papers 2010.07383, arXiv.org.
    2. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Optimal insurance under rank-dependent expected utility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 51-66.
    3. Liang, Xiaoqing & Jiang, Wenjun & Zhang, Yiying, 2023. "Optimal insurance design under mean-variance preference with narrow framing," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 59-79.
    4. Karni, Edi & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2015. "Ambiguity and Nonexpected Utility," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    5. Massimiliano Amarante & Mario Ghossoub, 2016. "Optimal Insurance for a Minimal Expected Retention: The Case of an Ambiguity-Seeking Insurer," Risks, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-27, March.
    6. Andrew J. Keith & Darryl K. Ahner, 2021. "A survey of decision making and optimization under uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 300(2), pages 319-353, May.
    7. Boonen, Tim J. & Jiang, Wenjun, 2022. "Bilateral risk sharing in a comonotone market with rank-dependent utilities," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 361-378.
    8. Chi, Yichun & Zhuang, Sheng Chao, 2020. "Optimal insurance with belief heterogeneity and incentive compatibility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 104-114.
    9. Chi, Yichun & Zhuang, Sheng Chao, 2022. "Regret-based optimal insurance design," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 22-41.
    10. Boonen, Tim J. & Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "On the existence of a representative reinsurer under heterogeneous beliefs," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 209-225.
    11. Boonen, Tim J. & Ghossoub, Mario, 2021. "Optimal reinsurance with multiple reinsurers: Distortion risk measures, distortion premium principles, and heterogeneous beliefs," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(PA), pages 23-37.
    12. Asimit, Alexandru V. & Cheung, Ka Chun & Chong, Wing Fung & Hu, Junlei, 2020. "Pareto-optimal insurance contracts with premium budget and minimum charge constraints," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 17-27.
    13. Amarante, Massimiliano & Ghossoub, Mario & Phelps, Edmund, 2015. "Ambiguity on the insurer’s side: The demand for insurance," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 61-78.
    14. Lu, Zhiyi & Meng, Shengwang & Liu, Leping & Han, Ziqi, 2018. "Optimal insurance design under background risk with dependence," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 15-28.
    15. Aharon Ben-Tal & Dimitris Bertsimas & David B. Brown, 2010. "A Soft Robust Model for Optimization Under Ambiguity," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(4-part-2), pages 1220-1234, August.
    16. Peter, Richard & Ying, Jie, 2020. "Do you trust your insurer? Ambiguity about contract nonperformance and optimal insurance demand," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 938-954.
    17. Dillenberger, David & Segal, Uzi, 2017. "Skewed noise," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 344-364.
    18. Belianin, A., 2017. "Face to Face to Human Being: Achievements and Challenges of Behavioral Economics," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 166-175.
    19. Jiang, Wenjun & Hong, Hanping & Ren, Jiandong, 2021. "Pareto-optimal reinsurance policies with maximal synergy," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 185-198.
    20. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Horst Zank, 2023. "Source and rank-dependent utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 949-981, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal insurance; Ambiguity; Multiple priors; Maxmin expected utility; Heterogeneous beliefs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C02 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General - - - Mathematical Economics
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:finsto:v:27:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00780-023-00497-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.