The Unfortunate Regressivity of Public Natural Hazard Insurance: A Quantitative Analysis of a New Zealand Case

Sally Owen and Ilan Noy

No 6540, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Natural hazard insurance is almost always provided through public-private partnerships. Given the dominant role of the public sector, it is surprising that equity issues have not faced more scrutiny with respect to the design of hazard insurance. We provide a detailed quantification of the degree of regressivity of the New Zealand earthquake insurance program – a system that was designed with an egalitarian purpose. We measure this regressivity as it manifested in the half a million insurance claims that resulted from the Canterbury earthquakes of 2011. As in other cases, this can be remedied with modifications to the program’s structure.

Keywords: insurance; redistribution; regressivity; tax (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ias
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: The unfortunate regressivity of public natural hazard insurance: A quantitative analysis of a New Zealand case (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6540

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