Financial Instability and Life Insurance Demand

Abstract

This paper estimates private life insurance and Kampo demand functions using household-level data provided by the Postal Services Research Institute. The results show that income, children, pension and knowledge factors have a significant effect on the decision as to whether each household purchases life insurance products. The amount of income and financial assets also appear to have significant effect on the purchase of private life insurance and Kampo. However, pension and bankruptcy experience appear only to have an impact on Kampo, while aged (less than 40) and occupation (civil servant) factors affect only private life insurance. Dummy variables representing comparison, knowledge, and bankruptcy experience did not have any significant effect on decisions concerning private life insurance. Simultaneous estimations are also used to examine why households that already have one type of life insurance product (e.g. private life insurance) purchase the other type of life insurance product (e.g. Kampo). The results indicate that income, children, and bankruptcy experience variables are not significant factors when households with private life insurance product decide to purchase additional Kampo. The results also show that a knowledge dummy has a negative impact on additional purchases.life insurance demand, financial instability, sample selection model