Consumer Behaviour and Decision-Making from Officed- Based Doctors (PDF)

As individuals, we face the challenge of making numerous decisions every day. Although some of them are made consciously, the majority are made unconsciously and automatically (Pöppel, 2007, p. 22). Especially in the insurance sector, which is one of the more complex fields of decisionmaking, these decisions have far-reaching significance. The discussion of risk protection and individual insurance demand is gaining in importance, especially against the backdrop of climate change, cyber-attacks and global health crises such as the COVID 19 pandemic.
The literature research in the context of these interests revealed that studies and surveys in Germany, Europe, as well as in North America repeatedly identify structural insurance gaps and a tendency towards underinsurance. This reveals systematic deviations from economically appropriate insurance coverage. There is even talk of "misinsurance" due to incorrect risk perception, assessment, and evaluation on the part of the policyholders. From a behavioural economics perspective, these patterns can be attributed to heuristics and cognitive biases that influence the decision-making of the insured (European Commission, 2017; GDV, 2020; GoslarInstitut, 2016, Kunreuther et al., 2013, Richter et al., 2019).
Based on these findings, the commercial insurance coverage of doctors in private practice was evaluated and the demand for insurance was investigated. Officed- based doctors in Germany are central actors in the health care system and so far, there is no specific study on their coverage behaviour. The aim of the thesis was therefore to examine the officed- based doctors’ behaviours towards professional safe-guarding risks. With a further objective to investigate the use of heuristics and identify factors indicating deviations from economically adequate insurance coverage, to better understand manifested decision-making behaviour.