Abstract
This study analyses the role of insurance knowledge in mediating between various important information sources and insurance market participation using a large and representative national data set from China. We find that all information sources have a significantly positive effect on market participation. However, the insurance knowledge variable demonstrates significantly positive mediation effects only when the predictors are mass media and community outreach. The government can take advantage of disseminating such information via effective media identified in this paper, thereby achieving knowledge enhancement and maintaining the sustainability of the industry. Moreover, we see that the serious problem of agent misselling is also found in China, which has a devastating effect on insurers’ and agents’ credibility, making any information that they provide unreliable in the eyes of the public.
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Acknowledgements
We are deeply grateful for the very valuable comments provided by Runhuan Feng and the anonymous reviewers. We also greatly appreciate the generous support provided by the Research Funds for the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education (No. 15JJD790046) and the Insurance Association of China (IAC). The viewpoints presented in this article are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Financial Supervisory Commission or the Chinese Government.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Survey questions on insurance knowledge
Appendix 2: Other variables used in the empirical analysis and related survey questions
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Lyu, Z., Wei, L. Information sources and participation in the Chinese insurance market: knowledge as a mediator. Geneva Pap Risk Insur Issues Pract 46, 79–106 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-020-00180-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-020-00180-9