Temporal Profitability and Pricing of Long-Term Care Insurance‪.‬

ABSTRACT Equilibrium models of dynamic insurance markets can be bifurcated according to underlying assumptions about whether or not insurers commit to long-term contracts. The difference is substantial in that commitment models imply price highballing over time while no-commitment models indicate price lowballing. Extant empirical studies provide mixed evidence, however. We use long-term care (LTC) insurance data, which allow us both to better control for heterogeneous, observable risk, to examine dynamic profitability and pricing in a relatively young, innovative insurance market. Our tests generally indicate temporal price lowballing, thereby providing support for the no-commitment models.