Analysis and Modeling of Customer-Perceived Value of Medical Insurance Products
The insurance industry in Japan has undergone drastic changes since the new insurance business law became effective in 1996. Understanding customers’ needs and values in purchasing insurance products has become more important for insurance institutions th
- PDF / 397,142 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 439.36 x 666.15 pts Page_size
- 19 Downloads / 172 Views
Abstract The insurance industry in Japan has undergone drastic changes since the new insurance business law became effective in 1996. Understanding customers’ needs and values in purchasing insurance products has become more important for insurance institutions than ever before, because of not only environmental changes but also changes in customer behavior. This study aims to achieve two goals: (1) to clarify the structure of the customer-perceived value of insurance products related to the medical treatment; and (2) to clarify the dynamics of the belief formation of consumers in a small community as to medical insurance products. Specifically, a Bayesian network modeling based on the consumers’ survey data was used for the former purpose. A multi-agent simulation (MAS) was used for the latter purpose. Finally, the findings that can be utilized in marketing strategies were obtained. Keywords Axelrod’s culture model • Bayesian network modeling • Medical insurance • Multi-agent simulation
1 Introduction The insurance industry in Japan has undergone drastic changes since the new insurance business law became effective in 1996, which aimed to loosen regulations on insurance companies. This law newly established Sector III Medical Insurance the third field of insurance services including medical insurance and nursing insurance [1]. By contrast, two other insurance fields had already existed: Sector I Life Insurance, which includes whole life insurance, term assurance, and so on; and
Y. Ishino () Graduate School of Innovation & Technology Management, Yamaguchi University, Ube, Japan e-mail: [email protected] T. Murata et al. (eds.), Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems VII: Post-Proceedings of The AESCS International Workshop 2012, Agent-Based Social Systems 10, DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-54279-7 9, © Springer Japan 2013
115
116
Y. Ishino
Sector II Damage Insurance which includes automobile insurance, fire insurance, and so on. Before the law was implemented, foreign companies had monopolized the insurance services classified into the third sector. However, the law allowed both life insurers and nonlife insurers to enter the third sector, so that a variety of medical insurance products was launched in the market. The number of medical insurance contracts belonging to Sector III has increased continuously since 2001. However, the way of adding a medical special contract to a Sector I Life Insurance product constitutes a still significant share of the medical service coverage in Japan. Since the market for medical service coverage is complex, it is still unclear how and why a consumer chooses insurance products related to medical treatment. In addition, consumers’ attitude toward insurance products has greatly changed compared to before the 1996 law was enacted. Economic growth has recently slowed as a consequence of the current world economic crisis. And the labor force in Japan is shrinking because of the falling birthrate and the aging population. Accordingly, consumers have come to
Data Loading...
