Kansas Insurance

A non-profit community development group says it has found evidence in a national study that homeowners in urban areas underinsured serious and that it is difficult for poor minorities, ‘ buy insurance for the poor as whites.

The study was 13 cities, under the direction of gland, a group of activists, has prodded the banking sector during the procurement practices of credit in disadvantaged areas. He described his research as the first national survey in a decade, if insurance companies Redlining practice.

The report comes at a time when the regulatory authorities across the country are expressing growing concern about the availability and cost of insurance for the poor, particularly in California, New York and Texas .

“Perpétuent discrimination throughout the financial marketplace,” said Maude Hurd, president of the organisation in 24 countries. “It may be time for the federal government to play an active role in protecting interests of low-income families and minority rights. ”

The Acorn According to the study, insurance agents are five times more often refuse to property owners in inner cities a chance to buy insurance, they are high-income residents.

The collection of data from the insurance company in five Midwestern cities also found that people in poor minority neighborhoods has been much more likely to be uninsured than residents of poor neighborhoods white. At Milwaukee, for example, houses in poor areas, minorities were more than four times more often than white-owned homes are without insurance.

A spokesman gland, Deepak Bhargava, said his organization had considered requests from insurance companies and data analysis after the publication of Chicago, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and St. Louis. In addition, the organization of agents interviewed in 624 calls in 13 cities across the country. Findings disputed

Spokesman for insurance companies bitter, they are guilty of discrimination by race or geography. The increased risk in disadvantaged areas to make insurance more expensive, they say, and often difficult for poor people.

“It is much more difficult and expensive to obtain insurance in urban areas, but it is often difficult and expensive for food and other products, said Lynn Schubert, an Assistant General Counsel with the American Insurance Association, an trade group of more than 200 damage and accident insurance. “We are absolutely against any form of racial discrimination.”

Sean Mooney, a spokesman for the Institute of Information on insurance, another insurance trade group, warned that many people is not ensured in a field could reflect the fact that poor consumers may decide not to buy. He said he had not had sufficient time to Acorn.

“I do not see that everything here on the question of whether someone can not get insurance,” said Mooney. “People are poor, sometimes not decide.”

If insurance is readily available and affordable is an essential element in economic development for urban areas, say the economists. Without insurance, real estate, the owner will be unable to mortgages and the economy are not able to obtain credit. And the city’s inhabitants to pay auto insurance premiums, which are often higher than suburbanites.

After the riots of 1968, a federal study revealed a lack of dissemination of insurance in urban areas, and the Congress stand prepared plans currently known as equity in access to insurance requirements, or FAIR. The plans were designed, insurance available to residents of high-risk areas, but since 1979 there has been no verification of the multi-state how many people are underinsured and how difficult it is to buy insurance in urban areas.

In Acorn findings that low-income neighborhoods were underinsured compared to the more prosperous regions. In Chicago, for example, only 51 percent of the occupied single-family units in neighborhoods were provided to low income, compared to 90 percent in high income. At Milwaukee, 51 percent of single-family in disadvantaged areas has been secured, compared to 84 percent in prosperous.