Natural hazard insurance is advocated as an important means of risk management, however, private insurance demand often remains below critical levels. Prior loss experience and the design of governmental relief schemes are two factors potentially influencing insurance decisions. We address these two elements in monetary incentivized experiments which include representations of natural hazard insurance schemes in Europe. The experiment reflects two possible designs of governmental relief schemes: partial but guaranteed relief and full but non-guaranteed relief. The risk of loss is kept constant over ten consecutive rounds to analyze the effect of loss experience. The experiment is administered twice: as a laboratory experiment with a student subject pool in Mannheim, Germany, and as an online experiment with citizens of flood-prone areas in the city of Dornbirn, Austria. In both samples, the design of the governmental relief scheme has no effect on insurance decisions. We find that prior loss experience adversely affects insurance decisions; uninsured subjects tend to remain un-insured after experiencing a loss, and previously insured subjects often switch to non-insurance in the rounds after the loss. These results have important implications for the design of flood insurance and flood risk communication.

提倡自然灾害保险作为风险管理的重要手段，但是，私人保险需求通常保持在临界水平以下。先前的损失经历和政府救济计划的设计是可能影响保险决策的两个因素。我们在货币激励实验中讨论了这两个要素，其中包括欧洲的自然灾害保险计划的代表。该实验反映了政府救济计划的两种可能设计：部分但有保证的救济和全部但无保证的救济。损失风险在连续十轮中保持不变，以分析损失经验的影响。实验进行了两次：作为在德国曼海姆市的一个学生实验池的实验室实验，并针对奥地利多恩比恩市易受洪灾地区的居民进行了在线实验。在这两个样本中，政府救济计划的设计均对保险决策没有影响。我们发现先前的损失经历会对保险决策产生不利影响；未投保的受试者在遭受损失后往往会保持未投保的身分，而先前投保的受试者往往会在遭受损失后的几轮中转为非投保。这些结果对洪水保险和洪水风险沟通的设计具有重要意义。以前受保的对象经常在丢失后的几轮中转而使用非保险。这些结果对洪水保险和洪水风险沟通的设计具有重要意义。以前受保的对象经常在丢失后的几轮中转而使用非保险。这些结果对洪水保险和洪水风险沟通的设计具有重要意义。