The effects of health shocks on risk preferences: Do personality traits matter?

•We investigate how health shocks influence financial risk tolerance of the elderly in the US.•We combine with evidence that personality traits shape financial risk tolerance.•We explore if health shocks have heterogeneous impacts on risk tolerance by personality traits.•Health shocks negatively affect risk tolerance when men, but not women, experience the shock.•Shocks have heterogenous effects on risk tolerance by neuroticism, extraversion and openness.