From intention to decision in purchasing life insurance and private pensions: different effects of knowledge and behavioural factors

摘要

In this paper, we test several hypotheses about the influence of behavioural and socio-demographic factors on buying a life insurance policy or a private pension. Data were gathered from a sample of 1579 individuals, representative of Romanian consumers. We designed a questionnaire that emphasizes five distinct categories of determinants: economic factors, socio-demographic factors, general behavioural factors, specific behavioural factors, and a self-constructed index of insurance knowledge. Using logit regression models, we highlight a different mechanism that emphasizes the association between the intention and decision for life insurance and private pensions and its determinants. We show that specific behavioural factors and insurance knowledge are highly significant for the decision to buy, but not for the intention to buy, for both types of products.