Emotions and under-insurance 159
role in defining how one engages with insurance. While for some, insurance
is not a matter of trust per se, but of a social norm defined by macroeconomic policies and practices (Tranter & Booth 2019), others who have more
agency to choose to insure or not (such as renters) tend to reflect on their
relationship to insurers, climates and geographies with more emotional
reflexivity. It is this I seek to explore in the rest of the chapter.
Methodology
The empiric in this chapter is based on research conducted in 2017 and again
in 2020 exploring the experiences and perceptions of householders towards
risks in the tropical North Queensland city of Cairns. With a population
of over 150,000 and a geography that lay adjacent to the Coral Sea exposing the place to cyclone risks, Cairns has in recent times suffered dramatic
increases in insurance costs (ACCC 2019). This rise in premiums, which is
suffered across Northern Australia generally, has led to some evidence of
underinsurance and non-insurance (ACCC 2019; Osbaldiston, McShane &
Oleszek 2019). The latter is defined here as simply those households which
have elected to not purchase a policy that covers risk to property and/or
possessions. The former refers to those households which have insurance
cover which is inadequate to fully replace/rebuild property and/or possessions (Booth & Harwood 2016).
To investigate how people in Cairns engage with insurance, forty people
were interviewed about their experiences of place, their values, perceptions
of risk, experiences of the insurers, and decision-making processes. Twenty
of these interviews were conducted in 2017 and a further twenty in 2020 with
similar questions 1 . Of these forty interviews 35% (n = 14) were renters, 42.5%
(n = 17) were males and 57.5% (n = 23) were females. Of those interviewed,
47.5% (n = 19) identified themselves as underinsured or non-insured.
The interviews were conducted either in the homes of the participants or
in another place of their choosing, or over video conferencing due to the
2020 Covid-19 pandemic. All the interviews were transcribed verbatim and
then analysed using axial coding (Corbin & Strauss 2008). As Holmes (2015,
p. 64) suggests, analysing interviews to ascertain how emotional reflexivity
has shaped people’s thoughts and behaviours is difficult. The entire interview process could be conceived of as a moment of emotional reflexivity
where verbal and non-verbal language between the interviewee and interviewer shape how each performs their role in the meeting. Long after the
interview is complete, the researcher continues to ‘construct respondents’ –
making choices about which parts of the participant’s narrative get highlighted and which are hidden away (Foley 2012, p. 312).
Nevertheless, in this research, careful examination was undertaken of the
ways in which participants used language and expressed emotions to portray
their social worlds and their relationship with insurance, local geography,
and their history (Peck & Mummery 2018, p. 390). While there is no claim
role in defining how one engages with insurance. While for some, insurance
is not a matter of trust per se, but of a social norm defined by macroeconomic policies and practices (Tranter & Booth 2019), others who have more
agency to choose to insure or not (such as renters) tend to reflect on their
relationship to insurers, climates and geographies with more emotional
reflexivity. It is this I seek to explore in the rest of the chapter.
Methodology
The empiric in this chapter is based on research conducted in 2017 and again
in 2020 exploring the experiences and perceptions of householders towards
risks in the tropical North Queensland city of Cairns. With a population
of over 150,000 and a geography that lay adjacent to the Coral Sea exposing the place to cyclone risks, Cairns has in recent times suffered dramatic
increases in insurance costs (ACCC 2019). This rise in premiums, which is
suffered across Northern Australia generally, has led to some evidence of
underinsurance and non-insurance (ACCC 2019; Osbaldiston, McShane &
Oleszek 2019). The latter is defined here as simply those households which
have elected to not purchase a policy that covers risk to property and/or
possessions. The former refers to those households which have insurance
cover which is inadequate to fully replace/rebuild property and/or possessions (Booth & Harwood 2016).
To investigate how people in Cairns engage with insurance, forty people
were interviewed about their experiences of place, their values, perceptions
of risk, experiences of the insurers, and decision-making processes. Twenty
of these interviews were conducted in 2017 and a further twenty in 2020 with
similar questions 1 . Of these forty interviews 35% (n = 14) were renters, 42.5%
(n = 17) were males and 57.5% (n = 23) were females. Of those interviewed,
47.5% (n = 19) identified themselves as underinsured or non-insured.
The interviews were conducted either in the homes of the participants or
in another place of their choosing, or over video conferencing due to the
2020 Covid-19 pandemic. All the interviews were transcribed verbatim and
then analysed using axial coding (Corbin & Strauss 2008). As Holmes (2015,
p. 64) suggests, analysing interviews to ascertain how emotional reflexivity
has shaped people’s thoughts and behaviours is difficult. The entire interview process could be conceived of as a moment of emotional reflexivity
where verbal and non-verbal language between the interviewee and interviewer shape how each performs their role in the meeting. Long after the
interview is complete, the researcher continues to ‘construct respondents’ –
making choices about which parts of the participant’s narrative get highlighted and which are hidden away (Foley 2012, p. 312).
Nevertheless, in this research, careful examination was undertaken of the
ways in which participants used language and expressed emotions to portray
their social worlds and their relationship with insurance, local geography,
and their history (Peck & Mummery 2018, p. 390). While there is no claim