Messaging and the Mandate: The Impact of Consumer Experience on Health Insurance Enrollment through Exchanges
Natalie Cox, Benjamin Handel, Jonathan Kolstad, Neale Mahoney
American Economic Review · 2015 · Volume 105 · Issue 5
Abstract
The ability of web-based retailers to learn about and provide targeted consumer experiences is touted as an important distinction from traditional retailers. In principal, web-based insurance exchanges could benefit from these advantages. Using data from a large-scale experiment by a private sector health insurance exchange we estimate the returns to experimentation and targeted messaging. We find significant improvements in conversions in one treatment tested. Underlying the average impact were both inter temporal and demographic heterogeneity. We estimate that learning and targeted messaging could increase insurance applications by approximately 13 percent of the baseline conversion rate.
Keywords
Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis, Insurance, Insurance Companies, Actuarial Studies, National Government Expenditures and Health, State and Local Government: Health, Education, Welfare, Public Pensions, Health Insurance, Public and Private
Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.