Messaging and the Mandate: The Impact of Consumer Experience on Health Insurance Enrollment through Exchanges
American Economic Review
vol. 105,
no. 5, May 2015
(pp. 105-09)
Abstract
The ability of web-based retailers to learn about and provide targeted consumer experiences is touted as an important distinction from traditional retailers. In principal, web-based insurance exchanges could benefit from these advantages. Using data from a large-scale experiment by a private sector health insurance exchange we estimate the returns to experimentation and targeted messaging. We find significant improvements in conversions in one treatment tested. Underlying the average impact were both inter temporal and demographic heterogeneity. We estimate that learning and targeted messaging could increase insurance applications by approximately 13 percent of the baseline conversion rate.Citation
Cox, Natalie, Benjamin Handel, Jonathan Kolstad, and Neale Mahoney. 2015. "Messaging and the Mandate: The Impact of Consumer Experience on Health Insurance Enrollment through Exchanges." American Economic Review, 105 (5): 105-09. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151080Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- G22 Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
- H51 National Government Expenditures and Health
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I13 Health Insurance, Public and Private