Many South Africans, especially those with low incomes, remain excluded from the formal financial services and products market, ironically so, as these low-income households are more exposed to unforeseen economic shocks and being unable to recover from the unexpected financial impact thereof. Low-income households live in more risky environments and are vulnerable to numerous financial threats. They are also the least able to cope when a crisis present itself as they are the least likely to have any savings to deal with these crises. Vulnerability and poverty causes a downwards spiral of misfortune when reinforcing each other. Microinsurance has been considered as the next revolution in addressing the vulnerability and risk of low-income households in developing countries such as South Africa. Huge investments have been made by development agencies in an attempt to break the circle of poverty by offering reliable protection to the poor. A well-designed regulatory framework is important for the efficient and effective provision of microinsurance. Significant steps have been taken in an attempt to formalise the insurance sphere and to make provision for microinsurance. The question now arises, will microinsurance be a useful tool to include the low-income market in to the financial insurance industry and will microinsurance be profitable for insurers, taking in to consideration the cost and expenses of insurers due to over regulation and requirements by various legislation versus the applicable caps prescribed in the policy framework for microinsurance products? / Mini Dissertation (LLM (Insurance Law))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Ubuntu-Batho Community Development Trust, an organisation established by Mr Patrice Motsepe and his partner Dr Johan van Zyl / Mercantile Law / LLM (Insurance Law) / Unrestricted

This diploma thesis analyses problems connected with motor insurance of the company Česká pojišťovna a.s. and contains the project to improvement the offer of this product in order to be competitive and corresponding to the requirements of client.

A subjekt of this diploma thesis is to characterize risks and find suitable insurance portfolio. So an objektive of my thesis is suggestion suitable insurance portfolio for thw town Třešť. Diploma thesis is about risks, their classification, insurance and insurance products for non-profit-making organization. I tis focused on kriteria important for a organization when choosing an appropriate insurance too. It contains brief description of the organization and analysis of risks that can threaten it. Current insurance products are analyzed and optimal insurance coverage suggested.

In the regulation of financial services markets, policy makers have generally pursued the twin-goal of improving efficiency and competition to promote stability. This has stimulated academic inquiries into measurement and assessment of efficiency; competition and its effects on market stability in the achievement of these regulatory objectives. Despite the recognition of the role of insurance markets in complementing other financial services to promote economic growth in emerging markets; studies examining the industrial organization and microeconomics of insurance markets appear to be more focused on developed markets. Against this background, this thesis presents a collection of empirical papers on the efficiency, competition and stability of the largest short-term insurance market in Africa. Specifically, annual firm level data on 80 firms in the short-term insurance market in South Africa from 2007 to 2012 is employed to examine several industrial economics theories using a series of panel data econometric techniques. The findings from the empirical analysis are summarized as follows: First, the results from the data envelopment analysis technique indicate that short-term insurers operate at about 50% of their productive capacity, with only 20% of insurers operating at an optimal scale. Productivity growth, which reflects efficiency changes over time, is attributable to technological changes. Firm size, product line diversification, reinsurance and leverage are identified as the significant determinants of efficiency and probability of operating at constant returns to scale. The effect of size was, however, found to be non-linear. Over the study period, the results of convergence analysis suggest a slower rate of 'catch-up' by inefficient firms. Second, the estimates of the Panzar-Rosse H-statistic suggest that short-term insurers in South Africa earn their revenues under conditions of monopolistic competition. Further analysis also reveals that competitive pressures in the market are driven by the activities of small, foreign-owned and single-line insurers. Using the stochastic frontier analysis, average cost and profit efficiency scores of 80.08% and 45.71% respectively suggest that short-term insurers have high levels of efficiency in cost and low efficiency in profit. Competition is found to be positively related to cost and profit efficiency to validate the "Quiet-Life" hypothesis that competition improves efficiency. In examining a broader set of firm level characteristics that drive the exercise of high pricing power, proxied by the Lerner index, the thesis identifies firm size, cost efficiency, product line diversification, concentration, leverage and reinsurance contracts as significant predictors of pricing power in the market. However, the effect of cost efficiency, business line diversification and reinsurance are found to be heterogeneous across different quantiles of pricing power. Third, the thesis also documents evidence in support of the 'competition-fragility' hypothesis to indicate that competition is detrimental to the stability of the short-term insurance market. The 'competition-fragility' effect is, however, found to be stronger for weaker insurers compared with stronger insurers. Firm size, capitalization, reinsurance, business line diversification and foreign-ownership were also identified as other significant predictors of market stability. Three main policy recommendations for the regulation of the market are derived from the findings. First, in order to improve on the high levels of inefficiency in the market, the insurance regulator is encouraged to direct efforts at improving competitive conditions since competition is found to be efficiency-enhancing. Second, the regulator is also encouraged to place restrictions on mergers that result in increased market concentration. This will reduce market power and the tendency for the exercise of high pricing power. Another way of improving competitive conditions in the market is through the increased presence of foreign-owned insurers. This could be achieved through the formulation of policies that are friendly to encourage and attract foreign-owned insurers to participate in the local market. This will help reduce the monopolistic tendencies enjoyed by domestic-owned insurers. Finally, in order to ensure a positive effect of competition on market stability, the regulator should seek to reduce information imbalances through institutionalization of a reference bureau on claims. This will be useful in collecting data to achieve actuarial fair pricing of insurance policies and reduce the incidence of adverse selection and moral hazards which are characteristic of competitive insurance markets and induces instability.

Thesis advisor: Michael D. Grubb / The first chapter studies behavioral mechanisms to expand health insurance coverage. In health insurance markets where regulators limit insurers' ability to price on the health status of individuals, a traditional regulatory intervention to protect the market from adverse selection and expand coverage among young and healthy people is mandating insurance coverage. In this chapter, I analyze an alternative, behavioral mechanism in the context of the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces: the automatic enrollment of the uninsured with possible opt-out. I build a theoretical model which shows that this nudging policy increases coverage rates, and the size of its benefit depends on the strength of consumer inertia. Using an individual-level panel dataset on health insurance plan choice and claims, I estimate a structural model of health insurance demand and supply in the presence of switching costs. Simulating the effects of the policy, I find that auto-enrollment can increase enrollment rates by over 60% and reduce annual premiums by $300. Moreover, I show that taking into account the heterogeneity of preferences is essential when designing default plans for auto-enrolled consumers. Defaulting everyone into the same contract type leads to more quitting due to inefficient matching and it may also indirectly increase adverse selection on the intensive margin through the price adjustment mechanism. The results of this paper suggest that in order to avoid these problems and maximize the benfits of auto-enrollment in selection markets, it is important to design smart default policies. The second chapter explores how changes in cost sharing affect consumers' demand for health care. Cost sharing reduction (CSR) subsidies are a less well-known provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that aimed to make private health insurance coverage more affordable. These subsidies discontinuously increase the share of expenses paid by the insurer as enrollee income crosses the eligibility cutoffs. This specific subsidy design provides a unique setting to identify moral hazard in health care utilization from observational data that is a major empirical challenge in the literature. In this chapter, I combine individual-level post-subsidy premium data from an All Payer Claims Database with information on plan-level base prices to recover the amount of the premium subsidy. Applying the ACA's premium subsidy formula backwards, I am able to estimate family income. Using this imputed income, I exploit a sharp regression discontinuity design to study the impact of changes in actuarial value on consumer behavior. I find significant increases in health care utilization at income levels associated with the CSR subsidy eligibility cutoffs. These results imply that individuals tend to use more health care services only due to the fact that the insurer becomes responsible for a larger share of their expenditures. These results provide insights about the price elasticity of demand for medical care in a new context. The third chapter evaluates the impact of the ACA on HPV vaccination. Rates of completion of the HPV vaccine series remain suboptimal in the US. The effects of the ACA on HPV vaccine completion are largely unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between the ACA's 2010 provisions and 2014 insurance expansions with HPV vaccine completion by sex and health insurance type. Using 2009-2015 public and private health insurance claims, we conducted a logistic regression model to examine the associations between the ACA policy changes with HPV vaccine completion as well as interactions by sex and health insurance type. Among females and males who initiated the HPV vaccine, 27.6% and 28.0%, respectively, completed the series within 12 months. Among females, the 2010 ACA provision was associated with increases in HPV vaccine completion for the privately-insured and Medicaid enrollees. The 2014 health insurance expansions were associated with increases in vaccine completion for females with private insurance and Medicaid. Among males, the 2014 ACA reforms were associated with increases in HPV vaccine completion for the privately-insured and Medicaid enrollees. Despite low HPV vaccine completion overall, both sets of ACA provisions increased completion among females and males. Our results suggest that expanding Medicaid across the remaining states could increase HPV vaccine completion among publicly-insured youth and prevent HPV-related cancers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

MSc (Med)Genetic Counselling, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / The life insurance industry’s ability to access genetic test results has raised public concern regarding loss of privacy and discrimination. The insurer requires access to genetic test results to reduce the impact of individuals changing their insurance purchasing behaviour based on a predictive genetic test result, of which the insurer is unaware (anti-selection). In South Africa, industry guidelines have been established to reduce the risk of genetic discrimination whilst enabling insurance companies’ access to this information for appropriate assessment of insurance risk. This study was the first to investigate the use of genetic tests by the life insurance industry of South Africa and their compliance with the guidelines, in order to identify behaviour that could result in genetic discrimination or unexpected risk exposure for the insurer. A structured interview process was conducted with 13 companies (8 insurance companies and 5 reinsurance companies), representing the individual life insurance industry. The interview guide was structured in a manner to gain insight into the companies’ approach to using genetic information, including genetic test results, in defining the policy terms of an individual’s life insurance contract. This study found that the companies’ responses to genetic information, particularly genetic test results, were demonstrated to be aligned with the regulatory guidelines. Irregularities in their processes were noted and these could lead to discrimination or increased risk exposure for the insurance company. These resulted from inconsistencies noted in the companies’ understanding of the genetic disease mechanisms of a medical condition, which is used to interpret the genetic information to assign risk. In conclusion, this study identified the need for a consistent approach to the interpretation of genetic information which would reduce the risk of genetic discrimination. This may be established through the support of specialist genetic services.

The shaky political landscape in South Africa, resulting from high rate of corruption and political instability, is affecting economic growth. Among businesses, the use of insurance contracts has been advanced as one of the most effective risk management strategies to deal with the business risk. Insurance is designed to hedge against unforeseen and unplanned risks that may be attributable to manmade or natural disasters. One of the major reasons for purchasing insurance is to avert risk, whilst most firms in the manufacturing industry are driven by regulations to purchase insurance. The goal of this study was to analyse industry level demand for insurance as well as determine factors contributing to the demand for insurance by corporate firms in South Africa for the period between 2013 and 2014. This study used a multivariate approach to analyse data, to derive a clear picture of what transpires in the purchase of insurance and arrive at intelligent decisions. Multiple regression analysis was used to ascertain the factors contributing to the purchase of insurance as well as to identify dominant patterns in the data revealed by other empirical studies to understand the area under investigation. The study established six variables/factors that played an important role in the purchase of insurance. These were: firm size, operational leverage, industry type, underinvestment, turnover and depreciation and amortisation. The major players that positively influenced the demand for insurance were firm size and industry type followed by turnover, depreciation and amortisation respectively. It was also established that most firms in South Africa are regulated, therefore it was mandatory for firms to buy insurance to hedge against any risk. The policy and research implications of the findings are discussed.

This study aims to investigate variables that impact on life insurance consumption in 15 Southern African Development Community member states, using panel data for the period 1995 to 2013. The macroeconomic and demographic variables employed in the research are income, inflation, financial development, urbanisation, education, health expenditure, age dependency, life expectancy, institutional quality (independent variables), and life insurance penetration (dependent variable) in Southern African Development Community member states. The study employed the fixed effects and system general methods of moments techniques to estimate the panel data. From the findings, it is concluded that the demand for life insurance varies for each model. Generally, fixed effects estimations reveal different outcomes for each model; variables such as inflation, health expenditure, age dependency, and voice accountability, are significant in explaining life insurance consumption in the Southern African Development Community region. The system general methods of moments estimator results uncover different outcomes: variables such as lag of life insurance penetration, health expenditure, age dependency, corruption control, and regulatory quality, are significant in explaining life insurance consumption. In general, the study concludes that there are positive/negative and significant/non-significant relationships amongst variables for demand of life insurance. The study then makes policy recommendations, that Southern African Development Community countries should advance the variables that influence the demand for life insurance, and that policies for the protection of life insurance growth should be developed to grow a healthy insurance sector.

This study utilizes farm yield data to generate the relationship between farm and county yields, and farm and crop reporting district (CRD) yields by using seemingly unrelated regression (SUR). The relationships are used to examine whether CRD level insurance is a viable alternative for county level Group Risk Plan (GRP) or Group Risk Insurance Protection (GRIP) by generating the certainty equivalent for each producer under different insurance scenarios, which includes no insurance, county level insurance and CRD level insurance under different scales and risk aversion coefficient levels. The analysis is conducted for Iowa CRD 10, Ohio CRD 10, Georgia CRD 70, Mississippi CRD 40, and Kansas CRD 30. This study also analyzes how well deep loss and shallow loss programs perform in different production regions by looking at the marginal certainty equivalent effects.

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