Decision-making under uncertainty and demand for insurance: An empirical study

Cristina Ottaviani and Daniela Vandone ()
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Cristina Ottaviani: Università degli Studi di Roma - La Sapienza

No unimi-1108, UNIMI - Research Papers in Economics, Business, and Statistics from Universitá degli Studi di Milano

Abstract: In this study we empirically estimated the role played by attitudes toward risk in insurance decision-making. To this end, we used the Iowa Gambling Task coupled with skin conductance recording, a validated experimental task of decision making under ambiguity which provides two dimensions of risk taking: the performance at the risk, as a measure of risk propensity, and the functioning of the somatic marker, as a measure of risk perception, that is the ability of the individual to “feel” the risk, independently of his/her risk attitude. The sample was made by 445 households and demographic-socio economical profiles were also obtained. Aside from confirming the role played by socio-economic explanatory variables, such as income level and marital status, on insurance purchase, results from the probit model showed the relevance of psychophysiological data: the likelihood of insurance demand is higher for people who are more risk seeking (worse performance at the task) but are adaptively able to feel the risk (anticipatory skin conductance responses to disadvantageous decks). Results are discussed in light of the need of interdisciplinary research.

Keywords: insurance demand; decision making; ambiguity; risk taking; Iowa gambling task (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-ias and nep-upt
Note: oai:cdlib1:unimi-1108
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bep:unimip:unimi-1108

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