Insurability of Quake: A Model Risk Analysis for Small Business Concerns

最近的公共政策讨论引发了人们对地震损害的可保性以及小企业购买地震保险的极低水平的担忧。与此同时，在保险评估过程中，特别是在地震保险评估过程中，关于确定性损失估计，特别是最坏情况估计的使用，也提出了非常理论的问题。这些理论问题表明，在不考虑概率的情况下做出的确定性决定可能会鼓励逆向选择，阻碍风险分散，例如，覆盖了许多具有地理分布的小型物业。为了审查这些问题，也为了澄清目前可用于地震的高级风险工具，将为保险公司和小企业开发和检查量化模型，以确定是否和在什么类型的计划下建立地震保险对小企业的灾后恢复是可行的。这一量化方法应进一步有助于澄清可保险性的概念。

Recent public policy discussions have raised concerns over the insurability of quake damages and the extremely low level of earthquake insurance purchase by small business. At the same time, very theoretical issues have been raised about the use of deterministic loss estimates, especially worst-case ones, in insurance evaluation procedures, especially for earthquake. These theoretical issues suggest that deterministic decisions, decision made in ignorance of probabilities, may encourage adverse selection and discourage risk diversification, such as coverage of numerous small properties with geographical spread. To examine these issues, and also to clarify superior risk tools now available for earthquake, quantitative models for both insurers and small businesses will be developed and examined using these models to determine whether or not and under what types of program constructs earthquake insurance would be feasible for post-disaster recovery of small businesses. This quantitative approach should further assist in clarifying the concept of insurability.