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The purpose of this paper is to examine the views held of property insurance by homeowners in Ire‐Akari and Ikeja areas of Lagos State in Nigeria. This is with a view to establishing the factors that are responsible for lack of insurance culture in these areas in particular and also Nigeria in general.

Questionnaires were administered on 485 homeowners, selected through systematic random sampling techniques in the two areas studied. The first building along the major street in the areas was selected randomly and every tenth building formed the subsequent unit of investigation. A household head/owner was surveyed in each of the building selected. Data were analysed with the use of frequency distribution, mean and standard deviation (SD) measure and Chi‐square test.

The results showed that 62.9 per cent of the total respondents agreed that property insurance was essential. However, only 40.3 per cent of the homeowners claimed to have insured their properties against unforeseen occurrences. The study found that homeowners' lack of insurance culture was significantly associated with their educational qualifications (χ² = 41.387, ρ < 0.01), family size (χ² = 12.199, ρ < 0.05), level of income (χ² = 36.585, ρ < 0.01) and level of awareness (χ² = 27.987, ρ < 0.01). It was also discovered that homeowners' attitude was influenced by the poor service culture of insurance companies and crime in the insurance industry.

The study concluded that the lower the level of income, educational qualification and level of awareness on the part of homeowners, the more the likelihood that they will not insure their properties and vice versa.

The study is one of the few attempts at examining the factors responsible for homeowners' lukewarm attitude to property insurance in an emerging market like Nigeria.

Home insurance is widely recognised as a tool for mitigating economic risk associated with natural disasters. This study aims to analyse the influence of homeowners’ home insurance knowledge (both objective and subjective types), perceived benefits (PB) and perceived vulnerability towards disaster loss (PVUL) on their intention to purchase (ITP).

This research makes use of survey data collected from 394 respondents (the homeowners) residing in various parts of India. The structural equation modelling is used to verify 11 hypotheses proposed in the study.

The findings indicate that both objective knowledge (OK) and subjective knowledge (SK) of home insurance have significant influence on homeowners’ benefit perception and PVUL. The homeowners’ PB of home insurance negatively affect PVUL. The OK of home insurance has a stronger influence on homeowners’ ITP home insurance than SK while the homeowners benefit perceptions and PVUL significantly affects homeowners’ ITP home insurance. These findings confirms that if homeowners are knowledgeable about home insurance, they perceive the plans as more beneficial and feel less vulnerable about catastrophic events, resulting in positive intentions towards purchasing them.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive research that assesses the Indian homeowners’ knowledge, PB and PVUL in influencing their ITP home insurance. The finding of this paper will assist both public and private insurance companies in India and similar markets in designing and implementing effective strategies to sell home insurance policies.

The purpose of this paper is to contrast the behavior of a US homeowner exposed to hurricane risk with government policies designed to limit hurricane losses. Owners limit these losses by selecting structural improvements or mitigation and wind and flood insurance.

The paper uses mitigation costs, hurricane probabilities, and insurance premiums to frame rational cost‐minimizing choices for the homeowner.

First, even though nationwide hurricane damage costs are large, the cost‐minimizing response for an individual property owner may be to buy no mitigation or structural improvements, no flood insurance and minimal wind insurance, as probabilities of strong hurricanes striking particular locations are extremely low. Second, additional insurance is a less costly defense than structural improvement, even under much higher insurance premiums and hurricane strike probabilities. Third, federally subsidized flood insurance may reduce the effectiveness of government programs encouraging structural mitigation.

The last few years were underscored by the catastrophic damages of Hurricanes‐Katrina, Ike and Wilma. Enormous costs suffered by the public and private sectors could have been avoided with greater mitigation by homeowners. This paper examines the financial incentives for such mitigation. Those incentives are examined in a previously untested framework.

During the 2004–2009 building boom, building materials in the United States were in short supply, in particular drywall. This shortage arose from the vast demand for repairing and rebuilding houses caused by several large hurricanes, namely, Katrina and Rita.

The situation is complex because there are many stakeholders involved: manufacturers, suppliers, contractors, insurance companies, and homeowners. The problem begins with the suppliers (apart from the natural disasters that exacerbated the issue). The first question that should be asked is Why import drywall from overseas to use in the United States? and What regulations were in place regarding the usage of drywall, and so on. The next item that needs to be looked at is the homeowners. This is a very bad situation for them as they must evacuate their homes. Some of them had to move out and rent an apartment. Some of them sold their houses for less than half of what they paid for them. The problem is What can they do about the defective drywall in their houses? Further, Will they get their money back? If they do, Who is going to pay for it? or Where are they going to stay?, and so on. Since there are an estimated 100,000 homes in more than 20 states that were effected in this situation, this chapter will focus on the homeowners who live in Virginia, as it is the residence of the chapter’s primary author. It is very important to understand the homeowners’ problems and also their options to overcome this problem. Various attempts have been made to solve the situation but the problem is still there. The problem not only involves homeowner compensation but also a need to prevent this situation from happening in the future.

Flood damage to uninsured single-family homes shifts the entire burden of costly repairs onto the homeowner. Homeowners in the United States and in much of Europe can purchase flood insurance. The Netherlands and Asian countries generally do not offer flood insurance protection to homeowners. Uninsured households incur the entire cost of repairing/replacing properties damaged due to flooding. Homeowners’ policies do not cover damage caused by flooding. The paper examines the link between personal bankruptcy and the severity of flooding events, property prices and financial condition levels.

A fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) regression model is developed which uses personal bankruptcy filings as its dependent variable during the years 2000 through 2018. This time-series model considers the association between personal bankruptcy court filings and costly, widespread flooding events. Independent variables were selected that potentially act as mitigating factors reducing bankruptcy filings.

The FMOLS regression results found a significant, positive association between flooding events and the total number of personal bankruptcy filings. Higher flooding costs were associated with higher bankruptcy filings. The Home Price Index is inversely related to the bankruptcy dependent variable. The R-squared results indicate that 0.65% of the movement in the dependent variable personal bankruptcy filings is explained by the severity of a flooding event and other independent variables.

The severity of the flooding event is measured using dollar losses incurred by the National Flood Insurance program. A macro-case study was undertaken, but the research results would have been enhanced by examining local areas and demographic factors that may have made bankruptcy filing following a flooding event more or less likely.

The paper considers the impact of the natural disaster flooding on bankruptcy rates filings. The findings may have implications for multi-family properties as well as single-family housing. Purchasing flood insurance generally mitigates the likelihood of severe financial risk to the property owner.

Natural flood insurance is underwritten by the federal government and/or by private insurers. The financial health of private property insurers that underwrite flooding and their ability to meet losses incurred needs to be carefully scrutinized by the insured.

Prior studies analyzing the linkages existing between housing prices, natural disasters and bankruptcy used descriptive data, mostly percentages, when considering this association. The study herein posits the same questions as these prior studies but used regression analysis to analyze the linkages. The methodology enables additional independent variables to be added to the analysis.

Construction defects in residential buildings are causing significant impacts both on consumers and the industry. As a consequence, several countries have established new home warranty schemes. However, designing a public policy for domestic building warranties can become a difficult task. In fact, many of these programs in the past have failed, collapsed or gone bankrupt. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to provide a systematic comparative representation of various active programs internationally.

The methodology relied on a multiple-case study research design. The case selection covered a total of nine jurisdictions with compulsory home warranty programs. Those included Japan, France, United Kingdom, three provinces in Canada (Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta), and three states in Australia (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland). The study applied a data collection protocol to gather all the evidence in a replicable manner for each individual case. Subsequently, a cross-case analysis was conducted to identify similarities and variations between programs.

The findings unveiled institutional practices that aimed to resolve, compensate, or rectify defects in residential constructions within these countries. The review mostly suggested that every home warranty program presents certain unique characteristics. At the end, this paper proposed an analytical illustration representing the diversification of components adopted by each jurisdiction.

Nowadays, there is still not a consensus within the academic community on what is an optimal solution when conceiving a new home warranty program. Hence, the current study aims to fill this knowledge gap by presenting the plurality of methods employed by several countries. This paper seeks to help policy makers and industry leaders to improve their home warranty scheme based on awareness derived from observations and analyses of what has been accomplished elsewhere in the world.

Librarians face considerable liability exposure, especially from employment actions, simple personal injury negligence actions, and from perceived violations of constitutional rights. Explains why and how liability insurance can be used in managing such risk, when liability insurance is needed, and compares four sample policies.

The purpose of this research study is to determine whether flood-damaged residences located in the USA are remaining unrepaired because of the lack of flood insurance coverage. Unrepaired flooded dwellings are subsequently being foreclosed with mortgage-insurance claims being paid to lenders. This paper aims to examine if weather events that cause flooding impact the losses suffered by mortgage insurers and homeowners.

Two fully modified least squares regression models are done using losses experienced by two mortgage insurance companies. The AM Best insurance rating information for a 16-year period or years 2002–2017 is used to study whether the loss ratios experienced by two companies underwriting private mortgage insurance (PMI) are statistically correlated to National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claim levels. The assumption is that higher flood insurance claims are a proxy for more severe weather events during a particular year which results in flooding that damage residences.

The NFIP claims coefficient is positive and significant for both companies being examined. This indicates that the more serious the flooding event during a specific year, the higher the losses experienced by the private mortgage insurer. The R² results for the regression models were 0.673–0.695. The income variable has a negative coefficient which was significant. It indicates that falling income lead to rising mortgage insurer losses. The NFIP variable was significant with a positive coefficient.

The mortgage insurance industry is dominated by several companies at any point in time. During the 16-year study period, some companies have become insolvent, merged with other companies or recently started underwriting mortgage insurance. One company was diversified writing multiple lines of property insurance. There were only two insurers with complete financial information for the specified study period.

There are currently five mortgage insurers operating in the USA. A serious flood event could cause the insolvency of some of these companies. This would reduce the competition existing in the default insurance market. The financial markets for real estate loans price mortgages based on the availability and the ability to secure mortgage insurance for high loan-to-value properties. There is federal mortgage insurance available for certain types of residential loans.

There are a limited number of insurers writing flood insurance. These companies can pick or reject dwellings and/or commercial properties to underwrite for insurance. The goal of phasing out insurance through the NFIP may prove impossible to achieve. A flood event without insurance would cause serious financial consequences to property owners, loan delinquencies and could depress the local economy for years. Competition from private mortgage insurers may intensify the adverse selection already being experienced by the NFIP. Private insurers would select the lower risk flood applications leaving the more risky insurance to be covered by the NFIP.

Prior research focused on financial variables impacting PMI and weather factors affecting flood insurance claims. Financial ratios published in the AM Best rating guide for the USA and Canada were used to examine whether or not PMI losses are indirectly affected by flooding events as measured by NFIP variable. Comparing two separate lines of insurance and their impact on each other has not been studied by prior researchers.

Faced with fierce competition, increasingly more organizations seek to audit demand in the marketplace. The same can be said for insurers. Empirical findings show that insurers are widely disliked by customers, and insurance agents talked to clients on average once every eight years. We found that approximately 44 per cent of the population does not own any form of insurance, for example life insurance and personal accidents insurance. What are the underlying reasons why the majority of people do not insure themselves against hazards? There is a need for insurers to undertake a demand audit in order to understand what the policyholder wants and needs. Information from customers plays a major role in the auditing process. Our audit checklist includes: demographic characteristics of policyholders and non‐policyholders; reasons for being insured and not insured; and critical purchasing factors. The demand audit that we surveyed will help the insurance industry design a good strategy to meet the demands of the market.

The recent trend of integrated risk management has resulted in corporations reassessing their risk management practices. Insurance derivatives and insurance‐linked securities are emerging as alternatives or complements to traditional resisurance capacity. Despite its theoretical benefits, the market for insurance‐linked transactions has not matured, due to problems of information asymmetry and lack of transparency. This article proposes a solution to resolve the conflicting interests preventing insurers/reinsurers and investors from more widely trading insurance risk.