American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Services as Experience Goods: An Empirical Examination of Consumer Learning in Automobile Insurance
American Economic Review
vol. 95,
no. 5, December 2005
(pp. 1444–1463)
Abstract
Theoretical work on experience goods sets out three empirical questions. How accurate is information at initial purchase? How rapidly do consumers learn from product experiences? And how much impact does learning have on purchase decisions? I answer these questions for the case of automobile insurance, using a panel of 18,595 consumers from one firm. My principal findings are: patterns of consumer departures following claims point to learning; consumers enter the firm overly optimistic about its quality and are generally disappointed by experience; and the impact of learning is mitigated by the slow arrival of claims and the development of lock-in.Citation
Israel, Mark. 2005. "Services as Experience Goods: An Empirical Examination of Consumer Learning in Automobile Insurance." American Economic Review, 95 (5): 1444–1463. DOI: 10.1257/000282805775014335Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief
- G22 Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies