Understanding insurance antidiscrimination laws

Ronen Avraham, Kyle D. Logue, Daniel Schwarcz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds into separate risk pools based on the differences in their risk profiles, first, so that different premiums can be charged to the different groups based on their differing risks and, second, to incentivize risk reduction by insureds. This is why we let insurers discriminate. There are limits, however, to the types of discrimination that are permissible for insurers. But what exactly are those limits and how are they justified? To answer these questions, this Article (a) articulates the leading fairness and efficiency arguments for and against limiting insurers' ability to discriminate in their underwriting; (b) uses those arguments to identify a set of predictions as to what one would expect state antidiscrimination laws to look like; and (c) evaluates some of those.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)195-274
Number of pages80
JournalSouthern California Law Review
Volume87
Issue number2
StatePublished - Jan 2014

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Understanding insurance antidiscrimination laws'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this