A range of interdependent risks and individual decisions accumulate over a person’s life, shaping health and economic outcomes. This special issue of The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, edited by Joan Costa-Font (London School of Economics), Christophe Courbage, (Geneva School of Business Administration), and Nilesh Raut (London School of Economics), examines how insurance interacts with health throughout the life course and impacts incentives, behaviour, and resilience.
Insurance influences individual choices
In Ex-ante moral hazard? Overweight and health insurance expansion in Mexico, Joan Costa-Font, Mario Gyori, and Belen Saenz de Miera explore how health insurance coverage affects obesity-related behaviours following Mexico’s expansion of the public insurance programme Seguro Popular. According to their findings, increased access to coverage led to modest improvements in healthy behaviours, challenging the idea that expanded coverage could hinder preventive efforts.
Hyejeong Mun and Sojung Park investigate the relationship between holding private health insurance and investing in risky assets in Empowering portfolios: health insurance ownership and financial risk taking in South Korea. Their analysis finds that households in South Korea with private health insurance are more likely to make riskier investments, suggesting that the protection health insurance offers against unexpected medical expense allows people to increase their financial risk taking.
Insurance, risk, and well-being
Chu-Shiu Li and Sheng-Chang Peng use a large-scale dataset to test predictions about Taiwan’s cancer insurance market in An analysis of asymmetric information in cancer insurance: evidence from term and whole-life policies in Taiwan. Their examination of newly purchased policies shows evidence of adverse selection for whole-life policies, including an association between higher coverage and a greater probability of claims. The findings have implications for how insurers and policymakers approach risk classification, underwriting, and product design in the cancer insurance market.
Désiré Avom et al. find a positive association between life and non-life insurance market development and improving the subjective well-being of African populations in the paper Increasing people’s subjective well-being in sub-Saharan Africa: does the developed insurance sector matter? Their work considers panel data on insurance activity, well-being, and macroeconomic indicators from 31 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 2006 to 2022. Though the well-being effects vary by political systems and income, the research shows how insurance can lessen an individual’s anxiety about day-to-day uncertainties by guarding against financial losses from accidents, medical expenses, and other risks.
Managing long-term financial sustainability
In the paper Financial sustainability of the UK public health sector, Paul John Marcel Klumpes applies a financial sustainability framework to the English public healthcare trust. The analysis shows how financial reporting practices focused on short-term performance can obscure information about the long-term viability of the public health sector. It also highlights the challenges posed by demographic change for the healthcare system and imbalances in funding for public health across generations.
Hessam Bavafa, Anita Mukherjee, and Tyler Welch analyse the spending of US retirees in Asset decumulation in retirement: patterns, predictors, and the role of financial literacy. Their work shows that financial literacy is a key factor associated with higher wealth, lower debt, and a slower decumulation of assets. The findings highlight important considerations for ageing societies, including the role of formal retirement systems, individual behaviours, and institutional design in protecting financial resilience later in life.
Access the issue at SpringerLink (subscription required for some papers): https://link.springer.com/journal/41288/volumes-and-issues/51-3
