Insurance Pools for New Undiversifiable Risk.

Summary The European insurance industry benefits from some special antitrust exemptions. Indeed, insurers can syndicate, via a "pool", for the coverage of undiversifiable risks. We show that the pool issue amounts to share a common value divisible good between capacity constrained agents with a reserve price and private information. We characterize the equilibrium risk premium of this game and the resulting insurance capacity offered. We then compare the pool to a discriminatory auction upon two dimensions, the total capacity insured and the premiums. There is no clear domination of one auction format. Strength of affiliation and competition are key variables.