Intercultural research and motor insurance premiums: prejudices, multi-dimensional criteria and globalisation

Abstract

This paper looks at fundamental findings from the field of empirical intercultural research, taking an unusual viewpoint: analogies with insurance premium rating. Intercultural findings are of interest to the insurance industry in their own right. They become even more interesting, however, when viewed through the eyes of an actuary who applies advanced statistics to big data sets and, in doing so, has to tackle challenges similar to those faced by cross-cultural researchers: complex data, many random effects and the desire to interpret statistics intuitively, yet still remain as objective as possible. If one views the results of intercultural research with the same pragmatism as one would the premium rating outputs of e.g. GLMs – i.e. being neither overly sceptical about the models nor trusting them blindly – one realises they can serve as a helpful source of inspiration for the day-to-day work.