The Role of Agents and Brokers in the Market for Health Insurance - Do They Help

代理人和经纪人在健康保险市场中的作用 - 他们有帮助吗

• 批准号: 7774730
• 负责人: PINAR KARACA-MANDIC
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-30 至 2011-09-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7774730
• 关键词: Role; Agents; Brokers; Market; Health

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): Insurance agents and brokers play a significant role in access, finance, and delivery of health insurance by acting as the consumer's agent, providing specialized services to help consumers navigate the complexities of insurance products. In exchange, they receive commissions from the insurer. Little is known about the relationship between the structure of the agent/broker market and access, affordability and generosity of insurance. Economic theory suggests that the agent/broker-client relationship may be flawed. Our research aims to investigate the role of agents and brokers in the health insurance decisions of small businesses, a sector that is particularly dependent on agents/brokers, and at the same time vulnerable to potential problems regarding health insurance financing. Our focus is whether the structure of the health insurance market, with agents and brokers acting as intermediaries, could lead to information problems and inefficiencies for small firms who significantly rely on these intermediaries. We will investigate whether the structure of the market for health insurance agents and brokers is associated with a broad set of outcomes related to shopping and offering of coverage, as well as generosity and types of coverage offered, and the small business response to high deductible plans and health savings accounts. Small firms have historically reported problems with the availability and affordability of health insurance and they heavily rely on agents and brokers for purchasing health insurance and for consulting. Our findings will improve our understanding of the barriers small businesses face in accessing and offering health insurance and will inform policy on the need for improving competition in the market for agents and brokers. Moreover, our research will inform design of legislation and health care reform. National or state reform initiatives can be implemented in various ways to enhance the involvement of agents and brokers in health insurance purchasing decisions, or to bypass them all together. It is plausible that employers would significantly benefit from access to brokers and agents who would educate and advise them on the reform provisions. On the other hand, if the agency relation between agents/brokers and employers is seriously broken, health care reform initiatives would benefit from rethinking the role of agents and brokers or reforming that market so that it functions more competitively. In either case, proceeding with a health insurance reform agenda without recognizing the key role of agents and brokers would be a mistake.

描述（由申请人提供）：保险代理商和经纪人通过充当消费者的代理商，提供专业服务来帮助消费者导航保险产品的复杂性，从而在健康保险中发挥重要作用。作为交换，他们获得了保险公司的委员会。关于代理/经纪市场的结构与获取，负担能力和慷慨保险之间的关系知之甚少。经济理论表明，代理/经纪人 - 客户关系可能存在缺陷。 我们的研究旨在调查代理商和经纪人在小型企业的健康保险决策中的作用，该行业特别依赖于代理商/经纪人，同时又容易受到有关健康保险融资的潜在问题的影响。我们的重点是，健康保险市场的结构以及代理商和经纪人充当中介机构的结构是否会导致非常依赖这些中介机构的小公司的信息问题和效率低下。我们将调查健康保险代理商和经纪人市场的结构是否与与购物和覆盖范围以及提供的慷慨和覆盖范围相关的一系列结果以及对高额扣除计划和健康储蓄账户的小企业响应有关。小型公司历史上报告了健康保险的可用性和负担能力的问题，它们在很大程度上依靠代理商和经纪人购买健康保险和咨询。我们的发现将提高我们对小型企业获得和提供健康保险面临的障碍的理解，并将为改善代理商和经纪人市场竞争的必要性提供保单。此外，我们的研究将为立法和医疗改革设计设计。可以通过各种方式实施国家或国家改革计划，以增强代理商和经纪人在健康保险购买决策中的参与，或者绕开它们。雇主将大大受益于经纪人和代理商，他们会向他们提供教育和建议的改革规定，从而大大受益。另一方面，如果代理商/经纪人和雇主之间的代理关系被严重破坏，那么医疗改革计划将受益于重新思考代理商和经纪人的作用或改革该市场，从而更具竞争力。无论哪种情况，在不承认代理商和经纪人的关键作用的情况下继续进行健康保险改革议程将是一个错误。