Understanding Insurance Knowledge: A Brief 7-Item Measure

Abstract

The conceptualisation of the insurance culture and the identification of a standard measuring instrument are the first steps towards defining a literate consumer. Obviously knowledge, understood as the ability to understand and use concepts in a conscious way, is considered to be a key variable for measuring the levels of many conceptual definitions of literacy, so also for insurance literacy. The aim of our research is precisely to verify the validity and reliability of a questionnaire that is composed of 7 questions that can represent a tool for measuring the level of insurance knowledge of consumers. The questions investigate the mere knowledge of insurance definitions and concepts, without going into too much detail about specific types of policies. To pursue this goal, a factor analysis has been conducted through a sample that is composed of 274 Italian respondents. The results show that those items are able to measure the basic insurance knowledge of a consumer.