Competition in the market for supplementary health insurance: The case of competing nonprofit sickness funds

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the competition of nonprofit sickness funds in the market for supplementary health insurance. We investigate product quality strategies when quality is costly and the sickness funds are competing for customers. As long as the sickness funds choose the qualities for simultaneously, any equilibrium will be nondifferentiated. Only if total demand is increasing in quality, both sickness funds provide the maximum quality. For decreasing total demand the existence of an equilibrium depends on the consumers' sensitivity. If there is no equilibrium in the simultaneous competition, sequential quality competition leads to a differentiated equilibrium with a first mover advantage.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Papers on Risk and Insurance ; No. 25 [rev.]

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Analysis of Health Care Markets ; Firm Organization and Market Structure ; Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise: General
• Subject: supplementary health insurance ; vertical differentiation ; output maximization ; Duopol ; Produktqualität ; Vertikale Konzentration ; Produktdifferenzierung ; Wettbewerb ; Gesundheitsökonomik ; Marktanteil ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ellert, Alexander ; Urmann, Oliver
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Hamburg University, Institute for Risk and Insurance
• (where): Hamburg
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/74540
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET