cars and racism/sexism

Jordan Hayes jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com
Thu Sep 23 07:26:12 PDT 1999


From sokol at jhu.edu Wed Sep 22 10:15:32 1999

Car insurance rates in predminantly "black" zip code areas

can be several times higher than in the burbs, for example

$3-4 thousand a year versus $800-$900 a year. This is

institutional racism not merely market, because insurance

is essentially about socializing (externalizing) of certain

costs and that necessaruly involves social distinctions

how those cost are or are not socialized, i.e. the costs

of blacks are externalized on other blacks but not whites.

I think just about everyone would agree with you -- except the insurance industry. "Insurance is essentially" ... yes, but that's not the implementation we got when we asked for it. How did that happen? Not sure. Can it be fixed? I sort of doubt it. So long as you can appeal to "lower rates for cherry-picked customers" you'll have a hard time getting people to pay the flattened rates you're suggesting. "Hey, if my car is less likely to be ripped off out here in Rabbit Run, why should I pay more?" -- the individualization of insurance will be a full-circle undoing of centuries of risk aggregation.

Sucks.

/jordan



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