One strategy to cope with lock-ins related to a transition to sustainable mobility is to develop a long-term policy vision at the EU-level.12 Policy instruments that can contribute to reducing lock-in also include provision of financial support and (green) public procurement [58].
When a combination of the above-mentioned strategies is effective in reducing the lock-in effect, high-risk individuals will encounter less restrictions to switch to another basic and supplementary insurance contract.
For example, the emergence of Google Photos as an application across Android and iOS significantly reduces the lock-in of Photos, the emergence of Spotify reduces the lock-in of iTunes, and the emergence of Drive and Dropbox reduces the lock-in of iCloud.
What could be effective strategies for policymakers to reduce the lock-in effect for high-risk individuals?
A confinement of the role of supplementary insurance to 'luxury' benefits (e.g. cosmetic surgery, spa treatments, first class hospital services) would make this type of insurance dispensable also for high-risk individuals, which would reduce the lock-in effect.
As long as health insurers face incentives for risk selection in basic insurance, strategies to reduce the lock-in effect for high-risk individuals may be counteracted by increasing use of supplementary insurance as a selection device.
A third strategy to reduce the lock-in effect for high-risk individuals would be to monitor insurers' underwriting practices and to make the results public, as is in the Netherlands annually done by both the Netherlands Patients and Consumers Federation NPCFF) and the Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa).
In any event, while we are expanding economic activity through the economic stimulus package, it makes sense to reduce any tendency to lock in new capital stock that would make it more difficult and costly to achieve long-term environmental goals.
The colleges love early admissions even more dearly because it enables them to lock in students, reduce the number of multiple applications, spread out the workload on admissions offices, and get an early fix on how well admissions are going (are they short of athletes, cello players, minorities?).
We have a very short window to dramatically reduce climate pollution before we lock in tipping points and catastrophic warming.
Although developing countries are granted more latitude in retaining higher tariff levels, they are under considerable trade negotiation pressure to lock in and reduce their tariffs, in both multilateral WTO negotiations and notably in bilateral and regional trade treaties.
