Determinants of insurance demand against forest fire risk: an empirical analysis of French private forest owners

In this article, we estimate the demand of French private forest owners for forest insurance against fire risk. For this purpose, we combine experimental data and real-world data on forest owners’ characteristics. Our econometric approach consists in estimating both insurance participation and coverage-level decisions, while accounting for sample selection issues. Our results clearly show that the type of public assistance is a significant determinant in the insurance decision. Other attributes of the experiment such as the expected loss only explain coverage-level decisions, whereas the existence of an ambiguity concerning the probability of fire occurrence positively affects both insurance participation and coverage-level decisions.