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Ambiguity on the insurer's side: the demand for insurance

Author

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  • AMARANTE, Massimiliano
  • GHOSSOUB, Mario
  • PHELPS, Edmund
Abstract
Empirical evidence suggests that ambiguity is prevalent in insurance pricing and underwriting, and that often insurers tend to exhibit more ambiguity than the insured individuals (e.g., [23]). Motivated by these findings, we consider a problem of demand for insurance indemnity schedules, where the insurer has ambiguous beliefs about the realizations of the insurable loss, whereas the insured is an expected-utility maximizer. We show that if the ambiguous beliefs of the insurer satisfy a property of compatibility with the non-ambiguous beliefs of the insured, then there exist optimal monotonic indemnity schedules. By virtue of monotonicity, no ex-post moral hazard issues arise at our solutions (e.g., [25]). In addition, in the case where the insurer is either ambiguity-seeking or ambiguity-averse, we show that the problem of determining the optimal indemnity schedule reduces to that of solving an auxiliary problem that is simpler than the original one in that it does not involve ambiguity. Finally, under additional assumptions, we give an explicit characterization of the optimal indemnity schedule for the insured, and we show how our results naturally extend the classical result of Arrow [5] on the optimality of the deductible indemnity schedule.

Suggested Citation

  • AMARANTE, Massimiliano & GHOSSOUB, Mario & PHELPS, Edmund, 2015. "Ambiguity on the insurer's side: the demand for insurance," Cahiers de recherche 2015-03, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montde:2015-03
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1866/12275
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Chi, Yichun & Zhuang, Sheng Chao, 2020. "Optimal insurance with belief heterogeneity and incentive compatibility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 104-114.
    2. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Budget-constrained optimal insurance with belief heterogeneity," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 79-91.
    3. Corina Birghila & Tim J. Boonen & Mario Ghossoub, 2020. "Optimal Insurance under Maxmin Expected Utility," Papers 2010.07383, arXiv.org.
    4. Dietz, Simon & Walker, Oliver, 2017. "Ambiguity and insurance: capital requirements andpremiums," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68469, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Mario Ghossoub & Michael B. Zhu & Wing Fung Chong, 2024. "Pareto-Optimal Peer-to-Peer Risk Sharing with Robust Distortion Risk Measures," Papers 2409.05103, arXiv.org.
    6. Tim J. Boonen, 2016. "Optimal Reinsurance with Heterogeneous Reference Probabilities," Risks, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-11, July.
    7. Ghossoub, Mario, 2015. "Vigilant measures of risk and the demand for contingent claims," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 27-35.
    8. Massimiliano Amarante & Mario Ghossoub, 2016. "Optimal Insurance for a Minimal Expected Retention: The Case of an Ambiguity-Seeking Insurer," Risks, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-27, March.
    9. Maristella Botticini & Pietro Buri & Massimo Marinacci, 2023. "Presidential Address 2023: The Beauty of Uncertainty: The Rise of Insurance Contracts and Markets in Medieval Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2287-2326.
    10. Mingli Zheng & Chong Wang & Chaozheng Li, 2016. "Insurance Contracts with Adverse Selection When the Insurer Has Ambiguity about the Composition of the Consumers," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 17(1), pages 179-206, May.
    11. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Budget-constrained optimal insurance without the nonnegativity constraint on indemnities," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 22-39.
    12. Mario Ghossoub, 2016. "Optimal Insurance with Heterogeneous Beliefs and Disagreement about Zero-Probability Events," Risks, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-28, August.
    13. Ghossoub, Mario, 2019. "Optimal insurance under rank-dependent expected utility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 51-66.
    14. Peng Liu & Andreas Tsanakas & Yunran Wei, 2024. "Risk sharing with Lambda value at risk under heterogeneous beliefs," Papers 2408.03147, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    15. Felix-Benedikt Liebrich, 2021. "Risk sharing under heterogeneous beliefs without convexity," Papers 2108.05791, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    16. Boonen, Tim J. & Ghossoub, Mario, 2021. "Optimal reinsurance with multiple reinsurers: Distortion risk measures, distortion premium principles, and heterogeneous beliefs," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(PA), pages 23-37.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal insurance; Deductible; Ambiguity; Choquet integral; Distorted probabilities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

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