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Insurance for Catastrophes - Indemnity vs. Parametric Insurance with Imperfect Information

Author

Listed:
  • Eberhard Feess
  • Cathrin Jordan
  • Ilan Noy

Abstract

Insurance for natural hazards - earthquakes, hurricanes, or pandemics - is rarely comprehensively adopted without intense government intervention, and even then it is often only a minority of properties or businesses that are insured. Efforts to close this insurance gap include the introduction of parametric (index) insurance products for various catastrophic risks. We compare parametric to indemnity insurance in a simple model where the insurance company has superior information about the probability of the event (reversed asymmetric information). We find that indemnity insurance tends to be welfare superior, because the coverage provided to agents who underestimate the event probability is larger than with parametric cover. Since it could plausibly be argued that a majority of the population is underestimating the risks of many types of extreme events, this difference in social welfare is potentially substantial.

Suggested Citation

  • Eberhard Feess & Cathrin Jordan & Ilan Noy, 2022. "Insurance for Catastrophes - Indemnity vs. Parametric Insurance with Imperfect Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 9631, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9631
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    business interruption insurance; insurance for pandemics; parametric vs. indemnity insurance; reversed asymmetric information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

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