Household risk strategies during a pandemic : Experiences from the 1918 influenza pandemic

The corona crisis has during the year 2020 put large pressure on the economy. Only time can tell whether the corona crisis will have permanent effects on corporate and household behaviour and how it will affect society at large. This article examines historical experiences of how households managed the financial consequences of the rising mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic. We find that the pandemic led to an immediate and major increase in primarily industrial life insurance policies on small sums designed for blue-collar workers. The increase in new policies did however not have a lasting effect. When the pandemic had faded over, the number of policies had dropped to bellow pre-pandemic conditions. This historical experience underlines that there are limits to the extent to which even a major shock, such as a pandemic, can lead to the kinds of behavioural change on which recent policies have been predicated