Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/330560 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Citation: 
[Journal:] The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice [ISSN:] 1468-0440 [Volume:] 50 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] Palgrave Macmillan [Place:] London [Year:] 2024 [Pages:] 595-618
Publisher: 
Palgrave Macmillan, London
Abstract: 
Existing research on how international insurance demand varies with income is largely driven by cross-sectional variation post-1970. Drawing on newly collected historical long-run data on life insurance premiums starting as early as 1850 to 2020 for 20 OECD countries, we evaluate the 'S-Curve' predicting insurance demand as each country transitions through different income levels. In contrast to predictions in the literature, we reject the 'S-curve', but identify a two-bump curve with two high-elasticity episodes, one driven by a massive expansion of life insurance contracts at the end of the 19th century to ensure mortality risks and the other in the late 20th century driven by a shift to savings products. This could imply that the longitudinal catching-up process of countries with low insurance density may be steeper than what the cross-sectional 'S-Curve' would suggest.
Subjects: 
Insurance demand
Life insurance S-curve
Historical-comparative research
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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