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Life insurance and demographic change: An empirical analysis of surrender decisions based on panel data

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  • Gemmo, Irina
  • Götz, Martin

Abstract

Households buy life insurance as part of their liquidity management. The option to surrender such a policy can serve as a buffer when a household faces a liquidity need. In this study, we investigate empirically which individual and household specific sociodemographic factors influence the surrender behavior of life insurance policyholders. Based on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), an ongoing wide-ranging representative longitudinal study of around 11,000 private households in Germany, we construct a proxy to identify life insurance surrender in the data. We use this proxy to conduct fixed effect regressions and support the results with survival analyses. We find that life events that possibly impose a liquidity shock to the household, such as birth of a child and divorce increase the likelihood to surrender an existing life insurance policy for an average household in the panel. The acquisition of a dwelling and unemployment are further aspects that can foster life insurance surrender. Our results are robust with respect to different models and hold conditioning on region specific trends; they vary however for different age groups. Our analyses contribute to the existing literature supporting the emergency fund hypothesis. The findings obtained in this study can help life insurers and regulators to detect and understand industry specific challenges of the demographic change.

Suggested Citation

  • Gemmo, Irina & Götz, Martin, 2016. "Life insurance and demographic change: An empirical analysis of surrender decisions based on panel data," SAFE Working Paper Series 240, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:safewp:240
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Cheng, Chunli, 2022. "Beyond death: The impact of a population-wide health shock on life insurance," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Mathias Valla & Xavier Milhaud & Anani Ayodélé Olympio, 2023. "Including individual Customer Lifetime Value and competing risks in tree-based lapse management strategies," Post-Print hal-03903047, HAL.
    3. Srbinoski Bojan & Strozzi Fernanda & Poposki Klime & Born Patricia H., 2020. "Trends in Life Insurance Demand and Lapse Literature," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 1-46, July.
    4. Bojan Srbinoski & Klime Poposki & Patricia H. Born & Valter Lazzari, 2021. "Life insurance demand and borrowing constraints," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 24(1), pages 37-69, March.
    5. Mathias Valla & Xavier Milhaud & Anani Ayodélé Olympio, 2023. "Including individual Customer Lifetime Value and competing risks in tree-based lapse management strategy," Working Papers hal-03903047, HAL.
    6. Cassandra R. Cole & Stephen G. Fier, 2021. "An examination of life insurance policy surrender and loan activity," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(2), pages 483-516, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Demographic Change; Life Insurance Surrender; Liquidity Shock;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

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