Study Results from University of Kentucky Broaden Understanding of COVID-19 (Did Covid-19 Change Life Insurance Offerings?)

2021 JUN 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Business Daily -- Investigators discuss new findings in Coronavirus - COVID-19. According to news reporting originating from Lexington, Kentucky, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The profitability of life insurance offerings is contingent on accurate projections and pricing of mortality risk. The COVID-19 pandemic created significant uncertainty, with dire mortality predictions from early forecasts resulting in widespread government intervention and greater individual precaution that reduced the projected death toll.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Kentucky, “We analyze how life insurance companies changed pricing and offerings in response to COVID-19 using monthly data on term life insurance policies from Compulife. We estimate event-study models that exploit well-established variation in the COVID-19 mortality rate based on age and underlying health status. Despite the increase in mortality risk and significant uncertainty, the results generally indicate that life insurance companies did not increase premiums or decrease policy offerings due to COVID-19.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Nonetheless, we find some evidence that premiums differentially increased for individuals with very high risk and that some policies were removed for the oldest of the old.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Did Covid-19 Change Life Insurance Offerings? Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2021. Journal of Risk and Insurance can be contacted at: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - http://www.wiley.com/; Journal of Risk and Insurance - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6975)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Aaron Yelowitz, University of Kentucky, Dept. of Economics, Gatton College of Business and Economics, 550 South Limestone St, Lexington, KY 40506, United States. Additional authors for this research include Timothy F. Harris and Charles Courtemanche.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/jori.12344. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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