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