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Full-Text Articles in Law

The First-Party Insurance Externality: An Economic Justification For Enterprise Liability, Jon D. Hanson, Kyle D. Logue Jan 1990

The First-Party Insurance Externality: An Economic Justification For Enterprise Liability, Jon D. Hanson, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

This Article explores the insurance and deterrence implications of important and long overlooked facts. Consumers are insured through first-party mechanisms against most of the risks of product accidents. However, first-party insurers rarely and imperfectly adjust premiums according to an individual consumer's decisions concerning exactly what products she will purchase, how many of those products she will purchase, and how carefully she will consume them. Such consumer decisions we refer to as "consumption choices. " This failure by first-party insurers to adjust premiums according to consumption choices gives rise to a first-party insurance externality. Based on this insight, this Article offers …


Book Review: Deforming Tort Reform, Joseph A. Page Jan 1990

Book Review: Deforming Tort Reform, Joseph A. Page

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The storms buffeting the tort system over the past two decades have come in three distinct waves. In the late 1960s, steep increases in the insurance costs incurred by health care providers protecting against negligence claims by patients triggered what came to be known as the "medical malpractice crisis." In the mid-1970s, manufacturers whose liability insurance premiums suddenly soared raised obstreperous complaints that called public attention to the existence of a "product liability crisis." Finally, other groups whose activities created risks exposing them to lawsuits found that their liability insurance rates had also risen precipitously. A full-blown "torts crisis" was …