Why Do Few Homeowners Insure Against Natural Catastrophe Losses?

Benjamin Antwi-Boasiako

Review of Economics, 2014, vol. 65, issue 3, 217-240

Abstract: Insurance has been suggested as a policy instrument that can help in managing the rising economic cost of natural catastrophes. Evidence, however, shows that many homeowners do not insure their homes against natural catastrophes and tend to depend on (unreliable) disaster aid. This paper surveys the economics, insurance and psychology literature to explain why few homeowners insure against natural catastrophes. The paper covers the relevant theoretical approaches as well as the available empirical evidence and possible policy measures.

Keywords: Insurance; natural catastrophes; government intervention; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/roe-2014-0302 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lus:reveco:v:65:y:2014:i:3:p:217-240

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/roe/html

DOI: 10.1515/roe-2014-0302

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Economics is currently edited by Michael Berlemann

More articles in Review of Economics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().