Centro de Documentacion de Fundación MAPFRE - Life insurance and life settlements : the case for health-contingent cash surrender values

Notes: We investigate why life insurance policies in practice either do not have a cash surrender value (CSV), or have CSVs that are small and are not adjusted for health status. We show that including health contingent CSVs in a life insurance contract causes a dynamic commitment problem, which makes it more costly up front for policyholders to purchase long-term contracts (because some poor risks who would otherwise have lapsed can and will now capture the CSV instead). To the extent that life insurance policyholders' incomes tend to increase over the course of the policy, policyholders are not willing to accept higher ex ante premium costs in return for the extra liquidity provided by the CSV. Because health-contingent CSVs act in a similar way to a life settlement market, we also study the life insurers' equilibrium choice of CSVs in the presence of a life settlement market. We find that optimally chosen CSVs can partially mitigate the consumer welfare loss caused by the settlement market (as in Daily, Hendel, and Lizzeri, 2008), but only if the CSVs are allowed to be contingent on health status.Related records: En: The Journal of risk and insurance. - Nueva York : The American Risk and Insurance Association, 1964- = ISSN 0022-4367. - 02/03/2020 Volumen 87 Número 1 - marzo 2020 , p. 7-39Materia / lugar / evento: Seguro de vida Contrato de seguro Derecho de rescate Operaciones garantizadas a medio y largo plazo Otros autores: Kung, Edward
Other categories: 341

Rights: In Copyright (InC)

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