Insurance and flood risk reduction in Ghana: do insurers penalise homeowners who take precautionary measures?

Today, many advocate insurance as a tool for coping with natural disasters. Beyond providing prompt financial relief to victims of disasters, insurance can also incentivise individuals to invest in preventive measures if insurers reward such efforts with reduced premiums. However, insurers might be unable to reward investments in precautionary measures with lower premiums if they are ill-informed about individual-level risks. Here, we explore how Ghanaian home insurers respond to investments in flood risk reduction by asking them to quote premiums for four identical buildings; two had investments in flood risk reduction, while the other two had none. We find that insurers did not reward investments in risk reduction, with some charging higher premiums for elevated buildings, suggesting they have interpreted such preventive measures as a sign of high flood risk. This failure to reward investments in precautionary measures may discourage insured homeowners from investing in risk reduction.     

Analysis of precipitation-related motor vehicle collision and injury risk using insurance and police record information for Winnipeg, Canada

Introduction

Police records are the most common source of data used to estimate motor-vehicle collision risks, understand causal or contributing factors, and evaluate the efficacy of interventions. The literature notes concerns about this information citing discrepancies between police reports and other sources of injury occurrence and severity data. The primary objective of the analysis was to assess the adequacy of police reports for an examination of weather-related injury collision risk.

Method

Analyses of relative risk were carried out using both police records and comprehensive insurance claim data for Winnipeg, Canada over the period 1999-2001.

Results and conclusions

Both data sets yielded very similar results—precipitation substantially increases the risk of injury collision (police records: RR 1.76, CI 1.55-2.00; insurance: RR 1.80, CI 1.62-1.99) and risk of injury (police records, RR 1.74, CI 1.55-1.96; insurance, RR 1.69, CI 1.55-1.85) relative to corresponding dry weather control periods. Both rainfall and snowfall were associated with large increases in collisions and injuries.

Impact on Industry

While relative risks are almost identical, over 64% more injury collisions and 74% more injuries were identified using the insurance data, which is an important difference for evaluating absolute risk and exposure.     

Valuing floodplain protection and avoidance in a coastal watershed

Flood‐related losses in the United States are increasing despite large‐scale mitigation efforts. To offset the rising cost of floods, the US Congress passed legislation in 2014 that will augment insurance premiums to make the National Flood Insurance Program more actuarially sound. Consequently, there is interest in lowering flood‐related costs to the homeowner, both in terms of premiums and damage. This study addresses the issue by integrating premium savings and damages avoided based on several mitigation scenarios. Specifically, it examines how much policyholders within a watershed near Houston, Texas, could have saved between 1999 and 2009 had their communities introduced specific avoidance‐based mitigation activities. The results indicate that homeowners and communities can offset premium rises and a majority of the damage suffered through marginal expansions of such initiatives. However, the costs associated with their implementation could counter some of these savings, and hence they need to be considered in future work.     

实施《工伤保险条例》的难点及对策

针对深入贯彻实施《工伤保险条例》的情况,提出了当前存在的难点有：工伤认定政策放宽带来的难点以及工伤保险与预防、康复存在事实上的脱节现象。采取了5个方面的对策：实施教育及激励约束机制,加强工伤认定工作的研究,完善工伤保险中的事故预防机制,以及建立工伤预防基金,强化安全“三基”工作。     

工伤保险在社保制度中的排序变化及其内涵

目前我国常见的社会保险制度排序是养老保险、医疗保险、失业保险、工伤保险和生育保险,工伤保险制度位列第四位;而在计划经济时期的劳动保险制度系列中,工伤待遇规定曾位居第一位,尔后才是医疗待遇规定、养老待遇规定和生育待遇规定。上述排序变化的出现不会是立法者的偶然随意之为,而是以实行市场经济体制改革后我国劳动者-企业-国家之"三方关系"出现的根本性变化为背景原因的,与制度本身从一种面向牺牲了个人安全和健康的建设功臣们实施的国家慰谢待遇向以分散风险、损失共担为机理的保险制度发生的转化密切相关。针对近年来极端劳资纠纷事件增多的趋势,我国的劳动安全管理及工伤保险立法决策还应更加注重向弱势劳动者的倾斜。     

对劳务、施工等外委单位安全管理工作的法律思考

分析了企业与外委单位的安全工作关系,明确了依法协调管理的依据和主要工作内容,对依法规避管理风险进行了探讨.     

我国推进环境污染责任保险的系统性风险及对策

环境污染责任保险是以企业发生的污染事故对第三者造成的损害依法应负的赔偿责任为标的的保险.本文在对我国环境污染责任保险30年发展历程进行全面回顾的基础上,从立法、模式、技术等层面出发,结合2019年底以来新型冠状病毒引发的公共卫生紧急事件挑战,分析了新时期政策实践面临的系统性风险,提出通过促进自上而下的立法推进与自下而上的自主试点良性互动、"低保额、低保障、广覆盖"的强制基本险与"高保额、高保障、个性化"的商业附加险灵活结合、经验数据积累与技术标准完善双管齐下、企业常态自主投保与特殊应急响应投保相互助力等方式妥善化解相关风险,为补齐生态短板、打好污染防治攻坚战、全面建成小康社会提供助力.     

Comparing earthquake insurance programmes: how would Japan and California have fared after the 2010–11 earthquakes in New Zealand?

Earthquakes are insured in high-risk high-income countries only if the public sector is involved. Prototypical examples are the insurance schemes in California (United States), Japan, and New Zealand, but each is structured differently. This paper examines these variations using a concrete case study: the sequence of earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010–11—the most heavily insured seismic event in history. It assesses what would have been the outcome had the Christchurch insurance system been different, focusing on the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) programme and Japan Earthquake Reinsurance (JER). Overall, the aggregate cost of the earthquake to the New Zealand public insurer (Earthquake Commission) was USD 6.2 billion. If a similar-sized disaster had occurred in Japan and California, homeowners would have received around USD 1.6 billion and USD 0.7 billion, respectively. This paper describes the distributive and spatial patterns of these scenarios and discusses some key policy questions that emerge from this comparison.     

我国社会保险关系转移和接续问题研究

劳动力要素的自由流动对我国市场经济体制的完善无疑有着极其重要的作用。比如可以提高要素的配置效率、加快城市化建设等作用。在现实中,我国劳动力要素的自由流动不但受到除户籍制度、劳动关系等客观社会基本关系的制约,还受到社会保险关系的制约,各地频繁出现的"退保"等现象,就说明社会保险关系转移和接续难。劳动力在不同地区很难实现自由流动,势必产生了不良的后果.直接损害了劳动者的权益,也影响了社会保险制度的完善。不完善的社会保险制度更加加剧社会的不公平,在构建和谐社会的今天,社会保险关系的顺利衔接无疑更有紧迫性和必要性。本文在了解我国目前劳动力的社会保险关系转移的现状的基础上,运用制度经济学和管理学的相关理论,较为深入地分析了社会保险关系正常流动难的原因,如统筹层次低、转轨成本的未完全消化等原因,并提出了相应的对策、建议。     

中国财产保险业巨灾损失赔付能力实证分析

商业保险是社会化巨灾风险分散机制的重要组成部分,要在中国现阶段巨灾事件频发的复杂环境中构建合理的损失分摊机制,不能不考虑以损失补偿为主要功能的财产保险业应对巨灾损失的能力。在Cummins、Doherty和Anita的保险赔付能力度量模型框架及改进后的损失对数正态分布假设下,引入1998～2008年中国财产保险业经营数据,对2009年初时点上在中国大陆经营财产保险业务的39家财产保险公司及全行业巨灾损失赔付能力进行了实证分析。结果显示,由于全行业资本与盈余的低水平以及再保险市场发展的严重滞后,在1 200亿到2 000亿元的损失区间内,中国财产保险业的赔付能力缺口在26.8亿到815.6亿元之间,且缺口增长速度大于损失增长速度。通过与2008年初的赔付能力实证分析结果对比发现,灾害频发的2008年客观上显著降低了中国财产保险行业应对极端损失的能力。度量结果从实证基础上昭示了政府大力扶持和参与巨灾保险体系建设的必要性和紧迫性。