WG Risk : “Subsidizing insurance to reduce poverty”

The Working Group on Risk - CREAR, with the support of the ESSEC IDO dpt/Ceressec, Institut des actuaires, Labex MME-DII (CY), and the group Risques AEF - SFdS, has the pleasure to invite you to the seminar by :

Prof. Corina CONSTANTINESCU, Institute for Financial and Actuarial Mathematics at University of Liverpool Liverpool, United Kingdom (UK)

Dr. Corina Constantinescu is Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Institute for Financial and Actuarial Mathematics (IFAM) at the University of Liverpool. Formerly an actuary leading a Romanian life insurance department, she co-founded the PARTY conferences (unil.ch/party) and coordinated the EU-funded RARE network, scientifically led by Prof. Kratz (ESSEC Paris) and Prof. Harshova (HEC Lausanne). She teaches MSc students from the African Institute of Mathematical Science network and was named in Cranfield University’s “100 Women to Watch” list in 2020. Her research focuses on ruin probabilities, fair insurance pricing, and financial inclusion. During her 2022–23 sabbatical, she was a visiting scholar at the ILO’s Social Finance Programme: youtube.com/watch?v=yWYj3F6bg_8

“Subsidizing insurance to reduce poverty”

In this talk, we examine how coordination between governments and private insurers enhances the effectiveness of microinsurance as a tool for poverty reduction. Using a ruin-theoretic model of household capital, we assess micro-insurance’s impact on poverty dynamics and government social protection costs under four frameworks: uninsured, insured without subsidies, insured with constant premium subsidies, and insured with flexible premium subsidies. Results show that while unsubsidized insurance may limit capital growth for some households, subsidized microinsurance schemes can maximize social benefits and simultaneously reduce government expenditure, highlighting their value as cost-effective instruments for inclusive economic resilience and poverty alleviation.

Dual format:

ESSEC Paris La Défense (CNIT), Room TBA, and via Zoom, please click here .