IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2007_006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wealth Effects on Demand for Insurance

Author

Listed:
  • Aase, Knut K.

    (Dept. of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

Abstract

A standard result states that under decreasing absolute risk aversion the indifference premium of the insured is a decreasing function of wealth. This has been interpreted to mean that insurance is an inferior good, which has been considered as a puzzle in insurance theory, in particular since the result does not seem to explain observed behavior in insurance markets. We reformulate the standard model of risk sharing to incorporate the amount invested in the insurable asset. From this we identify two wealth effects, one direct and one indirect. The direct one is explained by the classical result, and is negative when risk aversion is decreasing. The indirect effect is positive when the insurable asset is a normal good, and we find conditions when insurance is a normal good, and when it is not. The analysis is extended to Pareto optimal risk sharing, where we also analyze the joint problem of finding an optimal amount in the insurable asset, as well as a Pareto optimal insurance contract. In this latter case insurance turns out to be inelastic to changes in wealth of the insurance customer, provided the insurer’s reserves are held fixed, but a normal good if this assumption is relaxed.

Suggested Citation

  • Aase, Knut K., 2007. "Wealth Effects on Demand for Insurance," Discussion Papers 2007/6, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2007_006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/164112
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dionne, Georges & Eeckhoudt, Louis, 1984. "Insurance and saving: some further results," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 101-110, April.
    2. Szpiro, George G, 1986. "Measuring Risk Aversion: An Alternative Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(1), pages 156-159, February.
    3. MOSSIN, Jan, 1968. "Aspects of rational insurance purchasing," LIDAM Reprints CORE 23, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    4. Michael Rothschild & Joseph Stiglitz, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 629-649.
    5. Briys, Eric & Dionne, Georges & Eeckhoudt, Louis, 1989. "More on Insurance as a Giffen Good," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 2(4), pages 415-420, December.
    6. Aase, Knut K., 1993. "Equilibrium in a Reinsurance Syndicate; Existence, Uniqueness and Characterization," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(2), pages 185-211, November.
    7. Hoy, Michael & Robson, Arthur J., 1981. "Insurance as a Giffen good," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 47-51.
    8. 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. Aase, Knut K., 2006. "Optimal Risk-Sharing and Deductables in Insurance," Discussion Papers 2006/24, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    2. Chen Hua & Mahani Reza S., 2012. "Optimal Demand for Insurance with Consumption Commitments," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-26, June.
    3. Hun Seog, S. & Hong, Jimin, 2022. "Market insurance and endogenous saving with multiple loss states," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    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. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    2. Henri Loubergé, 1998. "Risk and Insurance Economics 25 Years After," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 23(4), pages 540-567, October.
    3. Hun Seog, S. & Hong, Jimin, 2022. "Market insurance and endogenous saving with multiple loss states," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Loubergé, Henri & Watt, Richard, 2008. "Insuring a risky investment project," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 301-310, February.
    5. Zhou, Chunyang & Wu, Wenfeng & Wu, Chongfeng, 2010. "Optimal insurance in the presence of insurer's loss limit," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 300-307, April.
    6. Christian Gollier, 2005. "Some Aspects of the Economics of Catastrophe Risk Insurance," CESifo Working Paper Series 1409, CESifo.
    7. Giovanni Millo & Gaetano Carmeci, 2011. "Non-life insurance consumption in Italy: a sub-regional panel data analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 273-298, September.
    8. Elisa Luciano, 1999. "A Note on Loadings and Deductibles: Can a Vicious Circle Arise?," Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1999(2), pages 157-169.
    9. Subir Sen & S Madheswaran, 2013. "Regional determinants of life insurance consumption: evidence from selected Asian economies," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(2), pages 86-103, November.
    10. R.A. Somerville, 2004. "Insurance, Consumption, and Saving: A Dynamic Analysis in Continuous Time," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1130-1140, September.
    11. Chu-Shiu Li & Chwen-Chi Liu & Chen-Sheng Yang, 2010. "Tax Deductions for Losses and Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 38(1), pages 51-63, March.
    12. Subir Sen, 2008. "An Analysis Of Life Insurance Demand Determinants For Selected Asian Economies And India," Working Papers 2008-036, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    13. Chi, Yichun & Zhuang, Sheng Chao, 2022. "Regret-based optimal insurance design," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 22-41.
    14. Aase, Knut K., 2006. "Optimal Risk-Sharing and Deductables in Insurance," Discussion Papers 2006/24, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    15. Alexis Louaas and Pierre Picard, 2022. "Optimal Nuclear Liability Insurance," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    16. Alexis Louaas & Pierre Picard, 2014. "Optimal Insurance For Catastrophic Risk: Theory And Application To Nuclear Corporate Liability," Working Papers hal-01097897, HAL.
    17. Alhassan, Abdul Latif & Biekpe, Nicholas, 2016. "Determinants of life insurance consumption in Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 17-27.
    18. Emily Norman Zietz, 2003. "An Examination of the Demand for Life Insurance," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 6(2), pages 159-191, September.
    19. Yang-Ming Chang, 2008. "Risk Avoidance and Risk Taking under Uncertainty: A Graphical Analysis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 52(1), pages 73-85, March.
    20. Richard Watt & Henri Loubergé, 2005. "On the Demand for Budget Constrained Insurance," FAME Research Paper Series rp137, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    The wealth effect in insurance; decreasing absolute risk aversion; inferior good; normal good; deductible; Pareto optimal risk exchange;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:hhs:nhhfms:2007_006. 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: Stein Fossen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.html .

    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.