Thomas Dudek Victoria University of Wellington

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people suffer losses amounting to many billions of dollars due to uninsured properties, putting the uninsured in debt, and in in the worst case threatening the existence of those already living in poor conditions. Thomas Dudek will use this grant to conduct an economics experiment that simulates as realistically as possible, via payment of real money to participants, how people are likely to respond to changes in insurance legislation. His study proposes to investigate the implementation of long-term property insurance contracts, instead of typical annual contracts, with automatic yearly increases of the sum-insured corresponding with value increases of the insured assets (with associated increases in insurance premiums). It is the goal of this and further research to lead to alterations in government policy about insurance schemes that could save the government and their citizens billions of dollars in losses from under-insurance.