默认选项助推老年人意外伤害险在线购买

Nudge:The Effect of Default Options on the Online Purchase of Accidental Insurance for Older Adults

老年人意外伤害保险作为应对人口老龄化带来的意外风险的措施之一,能够有效缓解老年人意外伤害给其和家庭造成的经济负担。然而该险种购买不足的现状有可能影响其持续运营。本研究试图通过四个子研究探讨默认选项的助推方式是否能够促进老年人意外伤害险在线购买额。研究1通过实际销售数据分析,研究2~4通过实验发现:把默认选项设置在最高份数上能够有效地促进保险的购买份额。研究表明应用行为科学的发现可以有效促进公共政策的实施。

Accident insurance for older adults has the advantages of low premiums,high security,and wide coverage.It has been actively promoted in various provinces of China and can effectively reduce the economic burden of older adults and their families.However,in practice,the willingness of insurance companies to undertake or engage in this kind of project is low because of the high operating costs.One of the strategies that could make such projects more attractive is increasing the average insurance purchase.Behavioral insurance theory emphasizes the behavioral factors that influence how people purchase insurance.This study explored whether a default strategy could promote the purchase of accident insurance by older adults through four studies.Study 1 analyzed the impact of different default option settings on purchase behavior based on actual purchasing data from Hangzhou City.Since two of the companies that undertook the promotional work had different settings for the default amount(one and four by default)when selling insurance online,we compared the specific impact of both default options.Study 2 used a quasi-experimental design to compare the impact of different default settings on the number of purchases.Furthermore,we also explored whether different rendering methods(tiling vs.increasing or decreasing)would affect the number of purchases to differentiate the effect from the default options presented in Study 1.Therefore,the second study used a 2(presentation form:tile vs.increase or decrease)×2(default option:five copies vs.one share)factor design.To simulate a real situation,six college students were recruited as insurance salesmen to promote the simulated product on campus using a leaflet.A total of 171 participants were persuaded to purchase by asking them to scan a quick response code with their mobile phone.The system randomly presented one of four designs.Finally,78 participants provided all the requested information and therefore their data were regarded as valid and were used in the final analysis.Study 3 explored the purchasing differences between the default option of five copies and no default option in a tiled manner.Participants were recruited during a psychology course,and a leaflet was issued asking the participants to choose to scan a code for insurance voluntarily.To increase their enthusiasm,the participants were told that 20%of them would receive a 30-yuan reward.Upon completion of the project,the researcher explained the purpose of the study.Finally,a total of 67 participants provided all information among the 168 participants who were willing to purchase the insurance.Since the prices of insurance differed between reality(Study 1)and the experiments(Studies 2 and 4),Study 4 was designed to determine whether there was an effect of promotion.Further,based on the results of Studies 2 and 3,the number of purchases in the low-number default option was lower than in the no default option.Therefore,Study 4 used three default settings(the default option of five,one,and none)with real prices.In total,98 participants provided all necessary information among the 219 people who participated in the experiments.The results of Study 1 demonstrated that setting the default option at a higher number of copies(four copies)promoted the average purchase amount compared to a lower number of copies(one share).Study 2 found that setting the default option to the maximum number of purchases(five copies)significantly increased the purchase amount compared to setting the minimum purchase size(one share).The results of Study 3 indicated that setting the default option to the highest number of copies could effectively increase the amount of insurance purchased.Furthermore,Study 4 showed that the effect of promotion was not significant,and the difference between the low-number default option and no default option was not significant.The four studies consistently showed that setting the default option to a higher number of purchases could effectively increase the purchase amount.The implementation of behavioral science in insurance management should be considered during future implementations of government insurance projects in China.