The psychological effects on tariff choices for car insurance

Abstract

Insurance customers increasingly choose between conventional flat-rate car insurance tariffs and innovative usage-based car insurance tariffs such as a pay-per-mile tariff. Usage-based car insurance tariffs require traffic telematics. In this paper, we analyze the decision-making behavior of insurance customers concerning tariff choices as well as the psychological effects. In other service areas, it can be observed that customers often prefer a flat-rate tariff even if their billing rate would be lower on a pay-per-use tariff for a given amount of usage. In study 1, we show that the purchase intention of car insurance tariffs is influenced by psychological effects as well as the customer’s personal experience with the insurance provider and that it is higher for a flat-rate car insurance tariff compared to a pay-per-mile tariff. Customers who have had positive experiences with an insurance provider induce a higher purchase intention for car insurance than customers who have had no experience with an insurance provider. In study 2, we show that the probability of choosing a flat-rate car insurance tariff is higher with increasing monthly kilometers.