Article ID: | iaor201522193 |
Volume: | 81 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 335 |
End Page Number: | 366 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2014 |
Journal: | Journal of Risk and Insurance |
Authors: | Frees Edward W (Jed), Meyers Glenn, Cummings A David |
Keywords: | economics |
Welfare economics uses Lorenz curves to display skewed income distributions and Gini indices to summarize the skewness. This article extends the Lorenz curve and Gini index by ordering insurance risks; the ordering variable is a risk‐based score relative to price, known as a relativity. The new relativity‐based measures can cope with adverse selection and quantify potential profit. Specifically, we show that the Gini index is proportional to a correlation between the relativity and an out‐of‐sample profit (price in excess of loss). A detailed example using homeowners insurance demonstrates the utility of these new measures.