Wealth and Insurance Choices: Evidence from US Households
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Gropper, Michael J.; Kuhnen, Camelia M.
署名单位：
University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; National Bureau of Economic Research
刊物名称：
JOURNAL OF FINANCE
ISSN/ISSBN：
0022-1082
DOI：
10.1111/jofi.13426
发表日期：
2025
页码：
1127-1170
关键词：
摘要：
Using administrative data for 63,000 individuals across 2,500,000 person-month observations, we find that wealthier individuals have better life insurance coverage, controlling for the value of the asset insured, namely, the consumption needs of dependents. This positive wealth-insurance correlation, which is surprising given the prevailing view that wealth substitutes for insurance, persists after allowing for wealth-related differences in risk or bequest preferences, pricing, background risk, education, employment, or liquidity constraints. Our findings call for further investigation of this wealth-coverage correlation but support theories emphasizing the consumption-smoothing role of insurance across not only states of the world, but also time.