Special insurance systems for motor vehicle liability

Automobile insurance is a compulsory purchase for most drivers in Europe and the United States. Obviously, this obligation raises concerns about affordability and availability. To mitigate such problems, in most legal systems special facilities have been created, either by policymakers or by insurance companies, to deal with risks that are very difficult to insure or are even considered uninsurable on the commercial market. We (1) provide an overview of special schemes in several European countries, (2) examine the potential advantages of reducing the number of uninsured drivers and investigate the influence of the special schemes on the decision of individuals to drive (un)insured, (3) examine the consequences of these schemes for the incentives of drivers and (4) discuss the social costs of the special schemes