How can car insurance be sexist but not other things? Could insurers change more based on race?
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at
9:15 am
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Stephen T asked:
Statistics show young men have more accidents so naturally they will pay more for car insurance. IF statistics showed one race got in more accidents or one race had their cars stolen more could insurance companies legally charge more to them? Serious answers only, please.
Theresa
Statistics show young men have more accidents so naturally they will pay more for car insurance. IF statistics showed one race got in more accidents or one race had their cars stolen more could insurance companies legally charge more to them? Serious answers only, please.
Theresa
Tagged with: Car Statistics • Race Cars • Race Statistics
Filed under: 1598
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Roland
But, how do you classify race? If someone is 1/4 asian, 1/4 native american, 1/4 caucasian, 1/4 ethiopian, how do THEY get classed?
You can’t take a Pantone card to someone’s skin, and use that with any data. It’s way too highly subjective. That’s one reason why race isn’t a factor – here in the USA, race is mostly a self identity thing, NOT objective.
You’re either male, or female. But you can be BOTH native american, and caucasian.
Eugene
They are sexists Female drivers are statistically involved in fewer accidents and guys under 25 forget it big time high premiums. As far as race thats a new one (except for the cavemen) but city, rural driving IS a factor in rates as well.
Julie
Insurance companies can not base rates on a persons race,,
However, insurance companies have a term called redlining …
They set higher rates based their losses in certain zip codes and if that area happens to be predominately a certain race then that could be (and has been called ) racial profiling,
Joy
Car insurance is not “sexist”. It does, however, base it’s rates on proven statistical data. Unfortunately, insurance is the one business that must decide how high their experenses will be BEFORE they incur the costs. There can be no profit if it’s just a guessing game. Once the statistics are verifiable, they must be submitted to the insurance commissioners of that state to be approved before the rates can be released to the company to be used.
If there was a capability to determine someones exact race 100% and there was statistical data to back the rate structure based on any particular races driving habits, I believe there would be scaled rates based on race.
Currently rates are based on marital status, age, occupation, credit history, claims data, sex, type of vehicle, frequency and reason for use of vehicle and multiple other factors.