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Customer insurance coverage sales plan problem, in which the loyal customers are recognized and offered some special plans, is an essential problem facing insurance companies. On the other hand, the loyal customers who have enough potential to renew their insurance contracts at the end of the contract term should be persuaded to repurchase or renew their contracts. The aim of this paper is to propose a three-stage data-mining approach to recognize high-potential loyal insurance customers and to predict/plan special insurance coverage sales.

The first stage addresses data cleansing. In the second stage, several filter and wrapper methods are implemented to select proper features. In the third stage, K-nearest neighbor algorithm is used to cluster the customers. The approach aims to select a compact feature subset with the maximal prediction capability. The proposed approach can detect the customers who are more likely to buy a specific insurance coverage at the end of a contract term.

The proposed approach has been applied in a real case study of insurance company in Iran. On the basis of the findings, the proposed approach is capable of recognizing the customer clusters and planning a suitable insurance coverage sales plans for loyal customers with proper accuracy level. Therefore, the proposed approach can be useful for the insurance company which helps them to identify their potential clients. Consequently, insurance managers can consider appropriate marketing tactics and appropriate resource allocation of the insurance company to their high-potential loyal customers and prevent switching them to competitors.

Despite the importance of recognizing high-potential loyal insurance customers, little study has been done in this area. In this paper, data-mining techniques were developed for the prediction of special insurance coverage sales on the basis of customers’ characteristics. The method allows the insurance company to prioritize their customers and focus their attention on high-potential loyal customers. Using the outputs of the proposed approach, the insurance companies can offer the most productive/economic insurance coverage contracts to their customers. The approach proposed by this study be customized and may be used in other service companies.

The recent experience with “toxic torts” — litigation involving those who are suffering slowly emerging injuries and diseases caused by exposure to hazardous substances such as asbestos — has underlined the need for a change in the tort liability system. The burden of asbestos lawsuits prompted UNR Industries of Chicago, the Manville Corporation (the nation's largest asbestos manufacturer), and others to file for protection under federal bankruptcy laws. Some 16,000 lawsuits were reported pending against Manville amounting to between $2 billion and $5 billion in potential liabilities. Several hundred firms are facing similar claims, and according to the Asbestos Compensation Coalition, from 400 to 500 new lawsuits are filed each month against asbestos manufacturers. The magnitude of this problem threatens the viability of the property and liability insurance business and raises the questions about the effectiveness of the present tort liability system in assuring adequate compensation to accident victims.

Argues that the general area of commercial sponsorship activity, while attracting increasing interest from marketing practitioners as an important strategic option in marketing communications, has not been the subject of sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive investigation by theoreticians. States the purpose is to establish and consolidate the available body of knowledge combining an overview of the standard conceptual approaches to marketing communication with an examination of the recent academic research in sponsorship, while maintaining a focus on current marketplace practice. Argues for a coherent and structured approach to the management of sponsorship expenditure through the application of a ‘management by objectives’ approach. Parameters are established in terms of a working definition of sponsorship, a review of its commercial development and an overview of current activity. Develops a commercially ration framework within which sponsorship activity may be undertaken. Views objective‐setting as the cornerstone of sponsorship management and outlines a classification of sponsorship objectives that subsumes current practice clarifies the range of potential benefits. Examines the criteria that govern rational sponsorship selection and proposes an evaluation strategy based on stated criteria. Methods of evaluating effects of marketing communications (sponsorship particularly) are examined and new evaluation techniques are advanced to facilitate the implementation of this rigorous scientific approach.

Premium subsidy rates were increased in 2019 and 2020 for livestock risk protection (LRP) insurance, which is price insurance for cattle producers. The authors examined if the LRP subsidy rate changes affected the LRP coverage levels purchased by feeder and fed cattle producers.

The authors collected the United States Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency summary of business sales data for daily LRP purchases from 2015 to 2023. The authors estimated a multinomial logit model to determine if subsidy rate changes were associated with the likelihood of LRP policies being purchased at different coverage levels.

After the 2019 and 2020 subsidy rate changes, the likelihood of producers buying LRP-feeder cattle policies with coverage over 95% increased relative to the policies with coverage less than 89.99% but did not influence the likelihood of producers buying LRP-feeder cattle policies with coverage between 90 and 94.99% relative to policies with coverage less than 89.99%. Marginal effects show these subsidy rate changes increased the likelihood of buyers purchasing LRP-feeder cattle policies with greater than 95% coverage. The subsidy change did not affect the purchase of LRP-fed cattle policies.

The results demonstrate the influence of the recent LRP policy adjustments on insurance purchases, which could be important for agency officials and policy makers. This is the first study to explore the LRP policy purchases which provides the United States cattle industry insight into the LRP price insurance take-up, which can guide producer extension education on managing price risk.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms that evolve during reputational scandals and lead to changes in industry regulation. It explores the processes by which a demand for external industry regulation evolves, also addressing the consequences of firms’ competitive behaviors which lead to substantial misbehavior and the destruction of reputational capital. The authors are interested in whether and how regulatory activities – in the case analyzed here, changes in insurance regulation regarding sales commissions for insurance brokers – are used as a costly, external behavioral control mechanism (third-loop learning) to terminate a reputational scandal that cannot be stopped by internal controls at a firm level (first-loop and second-loop learning) anymore.

The paper explores a real-life case in the German insurance industry that peaked in 2012 and has been well documented by broad media coverage, complemented by interviews with leading industry representatives. Using causal process tracing as a methodology, the authors study the factors in the case that led to an industry scandal. The authors further analyze why the insurance firms involved were not able to limit the scandal’s impact by internally controlling their behaviors, but had to call for external regulation, thus imposing costly restrictions on sales and contract processes. To identify the mechanisms underlying this result, theories from the fields of economics (game theory) and sociology (vicious cycle of bureaucracies), as well as organizational learning theory, are used.

The authors find that individual rationality does not suffice to prevent insurance firms from scandalous business practices, e.g. via implementing appropriate internal behavioral control measures within their organizations. If, as a result, misbehavior leads to reputational scandals, and the destruction of reputational capital spills over to the whole industry, a vicious cycle is set in motion which can be terminated by regulation as an externally enforced control mechanism.

This study is limited to the analysis of a single case study, combining published materials, e.g. broad media coverage, with interviews from representatives of the insurance industry. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanisms that have been identified can be used in other case studies as well.

The paper shows that if firms want to avoid increasing regulation, they must implement strong reputational risk management (RRM) to counteract short-term profit pressure and to avoid restrictive regulation imposed on the industry as a whole. Furthermore, it sheds light on the relevance of spillover effects for RRM, as not only employee behavior within an organization might lead to the destruction of reputational capital but also that from other firms, e.g. from elsewhere within an industry.

The paper contributes by emphasizing a direct causal link between corporate scandals, loss of reputation and regulatory change within the insurance industry. Furthermore, the paper contributes by combining economic theories with organizational theories to understand real-life phenomena.

This study investigates, from a resource dependence perspective, the effects of domestic private firms' political connections and economic power on their labor law compliance in China.

This study used data from a large-scale nationwide survey on Chinese domestic private firms, the Chinese Private Enterprise Survey collected from 2004 to 2012, to examine factors of interest that affect firms' compliance to labor laws. Hypotheses were tested using OLS regression models with robust standard errors.

The results indicate that domestic private firms' institutional political connections specified by the presence of a union or a Chinese Communist Party committee is positively related to firms' labor law compliance, and firm owners' formal political connections indicated by their membership in the People's Congress or the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference have a somewhat negative effect. The post-hoc analysis shows that firm owners' political representation at the county and city levels is negatively related with labor law compliance, while the political representation at the national level is positively related to labor law compliance. Moreover, the economic power of a domestic private firm is related positively to its labor law compliance. Finally, although the authors did not find evidence that the 2008 Labor Contract Law increased labor contract coverage, it did increase pension coverage after 2008.

The present study reveals a more refined relationship between domestic private firm owners’ political connections and the degree of labor law compliance. It also demonstrates that the economic power of domestic private firms has a positive effect on their labor law compliance. This implies the importance of the contribution of domestic private firms to economic and social development in China, warranting continued support of the development of the private sector in China.

This study adds to the sparse literature on the determinants of domestic private firms' labor law compliance in China. It also sheds light on whether political connections and the rising economic power of Chinese domestic private firms influence their compliance with labor laws.

The purpose of this paper is to use simulation analysis to assess farmer choice between crop insurance and supplemental revenue options as proposed during development of the Agricultural Act of 2014.

The certainty equivalent of wealth is used to rank farm choices and assess the effects of supplemental revenue options on the crop insurance plan and coverage level chosen by the producer under a range of farm attributes. The risk-reducing effectiveness of the select programs is also examined through their impact on the farm revenue distribution. The dependence structure of yield and prices is modeled by applying copula techniques on historical data.

Farm program supplemental revenue programs generally have no effect on crop insurance choices. Crop insurance supplemental revenue programs typically reduce crop insurance coverage at high coverage levels. An individual plan of crop insurance combined with a supplemental revenue insurance plan may substitute for incumbent area crop insurance plans.

The analysis provides insights into farmers’ possible choices by focussing on alternative crops and farm attributes and extensive scenarios, using current data, crop insurance plans and programs contained in the 2014 Farm Bill and related bills. The results should be of value to policy officials and producers in regards to the design and use of risk management tools.

With expenditures totaling $227 billion in 2007, prescription drug purchases are a growing portion of the total medical expenditure, and as this industry continues to grow, prescription drugs will continue to be a critical part of the larger health care industry. This chapter presents a survey on the economics of the US pharmaceutical industry, with a focus on the role of R&D and marketing, the determinants (and complications) of prescription drug pricing, and various aspects of consumer behavior specific to this industry, such as prescription drug regulation, the patient's interaction with the physician, and insurance coverage. This chapter also provides background in areas not often considered in the economics literature, such as the role of pharmacy benefit managers in prescription drug prices and the differentiation between alternative measures of prescription drug prices.

The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 directed the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Risk Management Association to investigate a policy targeted to farms and ranches that sell through local food markets. However, there is no available research that quantitatively documents the extent to which local food producers utilize Federal crop insurance.

The authors utilize 2013–2016 USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey data to compare farms and ranches with sales through local food markets to those with and without Federal crop insurance expenditure, as well as the distribution of Federal crop expenditure, across market channels and scales.

There is a little variation in Federal crop insurance expenditure across market channels, defined as direct-to-consumer only sales, intermediated sales, and a combination of direct-to-consumer and intermediated sales. Rather, the results show that scale is the primary predictor of Federal crop insurance expenditure; larger operations are more likely to have nonzero Federal crop insurance expenses.

This article provides the first national research to document descriptive statistics of the utilization of Federal crop insurance by US farms and ranches that utilize local food market channels.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides: