Be as safe as possible: A behavioral approach to the optimal corporate risk strategy of insurers

This paper empirically studies the impact of consumer reaction to default risk on an insurer's optimal solvency level. Using experimentally obtained data, we derive a price-default risk-demand-curve that serves as an input variable for the insurer's risk strategy. We show that an insurer should choose to be default-free rather than having even a very small default probability. This risk strategy is also optimal when assuming substantial transaction costs for risk management activities undertaken to achieve the maximum solvency level.