After injuries and illness, people in the United States rely upon a variety of mechanisms for compensation. People combine private insurance, public insurance, and mechanisms within the civil justice system. Earlier scholarship found relationships between the area of law and the demographic characteristics of people and claims making. In recent years there has been very little empirical scholarship on how people make claims, yet there have been substantial transformations in both the demographic characteristics of the people of the United States and in the insurance and civil justice institutions in the United States. This project will analyze how people search for compensation for losses associated with injuries and illnesses and analyze the complementary roles of various compensation institutions. The project will rely upon a probability-based Internet panel. After an initial screen, the project will select a subsample to address injuries and compensation. A better understanding of how people make claims, which systems work and in what way, how that varies by demographic characteristics, and how people understand the compensation they receive is fundamental to understanding significant social and private spending in the United States.
The questions are relevant to a broad range of public policies, including private and public social spending. The principal investigators will be able to provide information to policymakers concerning complementary mechanisms. In addition, the project will train students in methods of the social sciences.
