IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-01924408.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal insurance coverage of low probability-high severity risks

Author

Listed:
  • Alexis Louaas

    (X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique - X - École polytechnique)

  • Pierre Picard

    (X - École polytechnique)

Abstract

Catastrophic risks are often characterized by a low probability and a high severity. Taking these specificities into account, we analyze the intrinsic reasons for which catastrophic risks may be more or less insurable, independently from the market failures frequently observed in practice. On the demand side, we characterize individual preferences under which the willingness to pay for the coverage of large losses remains significant, although their occurrence probability is very small. On the supply side, the correlation between individual losses affects the insurance pricing through the insurers' cost of capital. Analyzing the interaction between demand and supply yields the key determinants of insurability and of a socially optimal risk sharing strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexis Louaas & Pierre Picard, 2018. "Optimal insurance coverage of low probability-high severity risks," Working Papers hal-01924408, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01924408
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://polytechnique.hal.science/hal-01924408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://polytechnique.hal.science/hal-01924408/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kousky, Carolyn & Michel-Kerjan, Erwann O. & Raschky, Paul A., 2018. "Does federal disaster assistance crowd out flood insurance?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 150-164.
    2. Kunreuther, Howard & Slovic, Paul, 1978. "Economics, Psychology, and Protective Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 64-69, May.
    3. Emmanuel Farhi & Xavier Gabaix, "undated". "Rare Disasters and Exchange Rates," Working Paper 71001, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    4. Charpentier, Arthur & Le Maux, Benoît, 2014. "Natural catastrophe insurance: How should the government intervene?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-17.
    5. repec:hal:journl:hal-00536925 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Martin L. Weitzman, 2009. "On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-19, February.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Rare Disasters and Asset Markets in the Twentieth Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 823-866.
    8. MOSSIN, Jan, 1968. "Aspects of rational insurance purchasing," LIDAM Reprints CORE 23, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Paul Raschky & Reimund Schwarze & Manijeh Schwindt & Ferdinand Zahn, 2013. "Uncertainty of Governmental Relief and the Crowding out of Flood Insurance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 54(2), pages 179-200, February.
    10. Carolyn Kousky & Roger Cooke, 2012. "Explaining the Failure to Insure Catastrophic Risks," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 37(2), pages 206-227, April.
    11. Francois Gourio, 2012. "Disaster Risk and Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2734-2766, October.
    12. Froot, Kenneth A., 2001. "The market for catastrophe risk: a clinical examination," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 529-571, May.
    13. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    14. Kunreuther, Howard & Novemsky, Nathan & Kahneman, Daniel, 2001. "Making Low Probabilities Useful," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 103-120, September.
    15. Dwight M. Jaffee & Thomas Russell, 1996. "Catastrophe Insurance, Capital Markets and Uninsurable Risks," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-12, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. Rietz, Thomas A., 1988. "The equity risk premium a solution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 117-131, July.
    17. Christian Gollier, 2004. "The Economics of Risk and Time," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262572249, December.
    18. Cummins, J. David & Doherty, Neil & Lo, Anita, 2002. "Can insurers pay for the "big one"? Measuring the capacity of the insurance market to respond to catastrophic losses," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2-3), pages 557-583, March.
    19. Niehaus, Greg, 2002. "The allocation of catastrophe risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2-3), pages 585-596, March.
    20. Raviv, Artur, 1979. "The Design of an Optimal Insurance Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 84-96, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexis Louaas and Pierre Picard, 2022. "Optimal Nuclear Liability Insurance," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).

    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. Alexis Louaas & Pierre Picard, 2021. "Optimal insurance coverage of low-probability catastrophic risks," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 46(1), pages 61-88, March.
    2. Alexis Louaas and Pierre Picard, 2022. "Optimal Nuclear Liability Insurance," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    3. Alexis Louaas & Pierre Picard, 2014. "Optimal Insurance For Catastrophic Risk: Theory And Application To Nuclear Corporate Liability," Working Papers hal-01097897, HAL.
    4. Harrison Hong & Neng Wang & Jinqiang Yang, 2020. "Mitigating Disaster Risks in the Age of Climate Change," NBER Working Papers 27066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Céline Grislain-Letrémy, 2018. "Natural Disasters: Exposure and Underinsurance," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 129, pages 53-83.
    6. Su, Hao & Ying, Chengwei & Zhu, Xiaoneng, 2022. "Disaster risk matters in the bond market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    7. Robert J. Barro, 2015. "Environmental Protection, Rare Disasters and Discount Rates," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(325), pages 1-23, January.
    8. Kent D. Daniel & Robert B. Litterman & Gernot Wagner, 2016. "Applying Asset Pricing Theory to Calibrate the Price of Climate Risk," NBER Working Papers 22795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Max Gillman & Michal Kejak & Michal Pakoš, 2015. "Learning about Rare Disasters: Implications For Consumption and Asset Prices," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1053-1104.
    10. Jesús Fernández‐Villaverde & Oren Levintal, 2018. "Solution methods for models with rare disasters," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 903-944, July.
    11. Robert Barro & Tao Jin, 2021. "Rare Events and Long-Run Risks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 39, pages 1-25, January.
    12. Richert, Claire & Erdlenbruch, Katrin & Grelot, Frédéric, 2019. "The impact of flood management policies on individual adaptation actions: Insights from a French case study," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Li, Minqiang, 2010. "Asset Pricing - A Brief Review," MPRA Paper 22379, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Jerry Tsai & Jessica A. Wachter, 2015. "Disaster Risk and its Implications for Asset Pricing," NBER Working Papers 20926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Ravi Bansal & Dana Kiku & Marcelo Ochoa, 2016. "Price of Long-Run Temperature Shifts in Capital Markets," NBER Working Papers 22529, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. François Gourio, 2013. "Credit Risk and Disaster Risk," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 1-34, July.
    17. Koetter, Michael & Noth, Felix & Rehbein, Oliver, 2020. "Borrowers under water! Rare disasters, regional banks, and recovery lending," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    18. Gourio, François & Siemer, Michael & Verdelhan, Adrien, 2013. "International risk cycles," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 471-484.
    19. Helmut Gründl & Danjela Guxha & Anastasia Kartasheva & Hato Schmeiser, 2021. "Insurability of pandemic risks," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(4), pages 863-902, December.
    20. Mona Ahmadiani & Susana Ferreira & Craig E. Landry, 2019. "Flood Insurance and Risk Reduction: Market Penetration, Coverage, and Mitigation in Coastal North Carolina," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(4), pages 1058-1082, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disaster insurance; catastrophic risk; risk aversion; capital costs;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:wpaper:hal-01924408. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.