European Business Schools Librarian's Group
ESSEC Working Papers,
ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School
No WP1305: Switching costs in competitive health insurance markets
Karine Lamiraud ()
Additional contact information
Karine Lamiraud: ESSEC Business School, Postal: Avenue Bernard Hirsch - B.P. 50105, 95021 CERGY-PONTOISE Cedex, FRANCE,
Abstract: In this paper we investigate the possible presence of switching costs when consumers are offered the opportunity to change their basic health insurance provider. We focus on the specific case of Switzerland which implemented a pure form of competition in basic health insurance markets. We identify several barriers to switching, namely choice overload, status quo bias, the possession of supplementary contracts for enrollees in bad health, firm’s pricing strategies based on providing low price supplementary products, poor regulation of reserves and the limitations of the previous risk-equalization mechanism which left room for risk selection practices.
Keywords: Brand loyalty; Choice overload; Competition among health insurers; Status quo bias; Supplementary health insurance; Switching costs; The Swiss case
15 pages, February 2013
Full text files
WP1305.pdf
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Sophie Magnanou ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-13005This page generated on 2024-10-19 15:41:33.