On the Relative Importance of Different Factors Explaining Health Plan Choices: Evidence From Mandatory Health Insurance in Switzerland

Abstract

Many factors influence health plan choices. Classical individual-level determinants include socioeconomic and health-related characteristics, and risk attitudes. However, little is known to what extent personality traits can determine insurance choices. Using representative survey data from Switzerland, we investigate the associations between choices of health plans and traditional individual factors as well as personality traits. We employ dominance analysis to explore the relative importance of the different predictors. We find that personality traits play an at least equally important role in predicting health plan choices as common factors like age, health status, and income. Our results have implications regarding recent efforts to empower people in making better health plan choices and support theoretical models that integrate insights from behavioral sciences.