Racism in England's car insurance policies

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British insurance policyholders may be paying $369 more in insurance if they are people of color, according to an investigation by Citizens Advice. 

The "ethnicity penalty" is a shocking trend that was discovered after a year-long probe. The insurance industry trade body has disputed the conclusions, claiming that ethnicity was "never" a factor to determine insurance cover costs.

Citizens Advice conducted 649 mystery shopping for vehicle insurance quotes using six distinct customer identities across eight postcodes in England in collaboration with the research organization Europe Economics. The goal was to compare costs in places with a high proportion of whites compared to places with people of color.

According to the organization, 754,000 persons of color had vehicle insurance plans and resided in locations where the purported ethnicity penalty applied.

In some areas, the organization found that the discrepancy was "more than 100%," adding that it was "concerned this suggests that areas with large communities of color may be identified as riskier, even when objective risk factors are controlled."

In areas with large proportions of black or south Asians, insurance costs were up nearly $1252. 

In Bristol, a neighborhood with a population of 41% black people and 18% South Asian people, it yielded an average price for a Vauxhall Corsa that was $373 – or 51% – more than a neighborhood less than two miles away with an 87 percent white population. According to the report, the quote was in spite of the white area having a higher crime rate.

The organization examined 18,000 auto insurance prices submitted by those seeking debt relief in 2021. It claimed that on average, persons of color paid $342 more per year than white people.

This is not the first time that ethnicity and insurance quotas have been linked. In 2016, a report surfaced that claimed millions of people living in areas with a high number of minority households were paying an "ethnic minority penalty" of up to $593 a year.

James Dalton, the director of general insurance policy at the Association of British Insurers, alleged that “insurers never use ethnicity as a factor when setting prices, and our members comply with the Equality Act. All other rating factors being the same, two people of different ethnicities who live in the same postcode will pay the same premium for their car insurance.”

Dalton claims that insurance is only determined by individual risk levels, ethnicity not being one of them.