As extreme weather worsens, Black and Hispanic homeowners are paying more for insurance

Filed 1h ago · Via Grist · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

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A report from the Consumer Federation of America finds that homeowners in predominantly Hispanic ZIP codes pay 30 percent more on average for identical insurance policies than those in white communities, and Black ZIP codes pay 16 percent more. The gap is worst in Florida, where Hispanic communities pay $5,014 more annually, and in Michigan, where Black communities pay $1,768 more.

The analysis controlled for the same policies on the same types of homes, meaning the gap isn't explained by what people chose to insure. Over a 30-year mortgage, the report estimates this adds up to $28,500 extra for homeowners in Hispanic communities and $15,000 for those in Black communities.

An insurance industry spokesman countered that premiums are based on risk, not race, and that using race as a rating factor is illegal everywhere. The report's authors note the disparity persists even after accounting for local risk factors, and ties it to a longer history of redlining that shaped which neighborhoods were deemed insurable in the first place.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

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You can build a system that never writes the word 'race' anywhere in its paperwork and still get a map that looks exactly like the old redlining maps. Call it actuarial science if you want, the family in the Hispanic ZIP code writing a check for five thousand dollars more a year doesn't much care what you call it. The industry's defense boils down to 'it's not us, it's the numbers,' which is what everybody says right up until somebody checks whose numbers they are.

Source: Read the original at Grist → Scored: Dreamlike · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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