Centro de Documentacion de Fundación MAPFRE - Insurance customer behavior : lessons from behavioral economics

MAP20190025942

Insurance customer behavior : lessons from behavioral economics / Andreas Richter, Jochen RuB, Stefan Schelling

Sumario: In economics it has traditionally been assumed that people make all their decisions like the so-called homo oeconomicus - that is, maximizing (expected) utility of total wealth. In recent years, economics increasingly recognized that people often exhibit behavioral patterns which are incompatible with the idea of the horno oeconomicus. The field of behavioral economics incorporates insights from the field of psychology to explain discrepancies between predictions of traditional econornic theoiy and actual observed behavior. In this paper, we summarize a selection of well-established behavioral patterns observed in reality and discuss their relevance for the insurance industry when it comes to better understanding and predicting customer behavior. We also explain that people are not always risk-averse and give a brief overview over Prospect Theory (probably the most popular behavioral economics altemative to Expected Utility Theory), its shortcomings for predicting behavior over a long time horizon, and its extensions. In total, we point out that, since dealing with risks and insurance products requires cornplex decision making processes, a deep understanding of the impacts of behavioral factors is essential to better assess and explain costumer behavior

En: Risk management & insurance review. - Malden, MA : The American Risk and Insurance Association by Blackwell Publishing, 1999- = ISSN 1098-1616. - 01/06/2019 Tomo 22 Número 2 - 2019 , p. 183-205

1. Márketing de la empresa de seguros . 2. Comportamiento del consumidor . 3. Prospectiva . I. Rub, Jochen . II. Schelling, Stefan . III. Título.