Term insurance Term insurance is what comes to mind when most people contemplate an insurance policy. In this situation, the insured pays a premium to the insurance company on a monthly or yearly basis. These premiums entitle the insured to be paid a benefit in the event of death. The typical policy is applied over a defined period of time. In most instances, the term of the policy is between 1...

This paper looks at markets characterized by the fact that the demand side is insured. In these markets a consumer purchases a good to compensate consequences of unfavorable events, such as an accident or an illness. Insurance policies in most lines of insurance base indemnity on the insured’s actual expenses, i.e., the insured would be partially or completely reimbursed when purchasing certain...

Between 1997 and 2003, the share of workers subject to mental health parity laws greatly increased. But because of exemptions for self-insured firms and small firms, coverage is much lower than a simple tally of state mandates would suggest. Limits on the types of conditions covered further weaken these laws. This paper summarizes the extent and scope of state parity legislation in terms of the...

Economic efficiency is improved in the presence of an implemented risk management program of the insurer. Risk management requirements are imposed by regulators to reduce the insurers’ insolvency risk, as well as to improve the insurance market stability. We extend the classical analysis on optimal insurance design to the case when the insurer implements regulatory requirements (Value-at-Risk)....

BACKGROUND Farmers are exposed to multiple air contaminants that may interact with tobacco smoking in the development of respiratory diseases. Farmers are currently considered to smoke less than non-farmers, but precise data in different categories of age and farming activities are lacking. METHODS Smoking habits were studied in a cross-sectional study involving 4105 farmers and 996 non-farmi...

Using an interrupted time series design and a census of births in California over a 6-year period, we show that state and federal laws passed in the late 1990s designed to increase the length of postpartum hospital stays reduced considerably the fraction of newborns that were discharged early. The law had little impact on re-admission rates for privately insured, vaginally delivered newborns, b...

We implement an empirical test for selection into health insurance using changes in coverage induced by the introduction of mandated health insurance in Massachusetts. Our test examines changes in the cost of the newly insured relative to those who were insured prior to the reform. We find that counties with larger increases in insurance coverage over the reform period face the smallest increas...

We analyze and compare the impact of tax incentives and of introducing enhanced annuities on annuitization behavior considering heterogeneity among the insured. We find that tax incentives for annuitization result in a significant increase of the portion of people who should annuitize and also an increase of the insurer’s profit since less healthy individuals also annuitize, i.e. adverse select...

In this essay, we shall make an attempt to account for the frequently observed phenomenon of insurance companies offering discounts to clients who possess a favorable record of past claims. We shall argue that such discounts provide a mechanism which enables both insurer and insured to counteract the inefficiency which arises from moral hazard. Moral hazard is an example of economic interaction...

Economic impacts from floods have been increasing over recent decades, a fact often attributed to a changing climate. On the other hand, there is now a significant body of scientific scholarship all pointing towards increasing concentrations and values of assets as the principle cause of the increasing cost of natural disasters. This holds true for a variety of perils and across different juris...