Fear or money? Decisions on insuring oneself against flood

Abstract

In 1999 a research program was started with the goal of finding the main reasons that influence people's decisions to insure themselves against losses caused by flood. In a field study a questionnaire that measured perception of the flood risk and motives for insuring or not insuring against the consequences of this disaster was used. The data were collected on a group of 66 households that were hit by flood in 1997. As expected, the results showed that the insurance decisions were related to a few basic psychological factors of flood-risk perception. The most important finding was that people who reported greater fear while thinking about flood bought insurance more often after the flood had occurred than people who did not report fear. Another factor of flood-risk perception, knowledge about flood, was not related to any aspect of insurance decisions. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.