TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bernheim,B. Douglas
AU  - Carman,Katherine Grace
AU  - Gokhale,Jagadeesh
AU  - Kotlikoff,Laurence J.
TI  - The Mismatch Between Life Insurance Holdings and Financial Vulnerabilities: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8544
PY  - 2001
Y2  - October 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8544
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8544.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
B. Douglas Bernheim
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Tel: 650/725-8732
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: bernheim@stanford.edu

Katherine Carman
Tilberg University
E-Mail: k.g.carman@uvt.nl

Jagadeesh Gokhale
Senior Fellow
CATO Institute
1000 Mass. Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20001
E-Mail: jgokhale@cato.org

Laurence J. Kotlikoff
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617/353-4002
Fax: 617/353-4001
E-Mail: kotlikoff@gmail.com
AB  - Using the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances and an elaborate life-cycle model, we quantify the potential financial impact of each individual's death on his or her survivors, and we measure the degree to which life insurance moderates these consequences. Life insurance is essentially uncorrelated with financial vulnerability at every stage of the life cycle.  As a result, the impact of insurance among at-risk households is modest, and substantial uninsured vulnerabilities are widespread, particularly among younger couples.  Roughly two-thirds of poverty among surviving women and more than one-third of poverty among surviving men results from a failure to insure survivors against an undiminished living standard.  We also identify a systematic gender bias: for any given level of financial vulnerability, couples provide significantly more protection for wives than for husbands.
ER  -