Require insurance reports
Listing of denials and cancellations could help identify unfair ‘redlining’
Updated: 08/14/08 7:04 AM
The state Department of Insurance should do more than “discuss” requiring auto and home insurers to report denials, nonrenewals and cancellations of insurance policies; it should make that happen. For years the state has had the authority to require this information, which could open up such decisions to public scrutiny, but never used it.
Insurers already are required to maintain this information. Requiring statewide reporting by ZIP code will shed public light on the data, and help distinguish business patterns that could indicate “redlining” by insurers — a practice where companies deliberately avoid certain neighborhoods or communities, to the detriment of low-income and overwhelmingly minority communities.
Banks and mortgage lenders, under the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, have been required to make similar disclosures for more than 30 years. So why not auto and home insurers? Because they don’t have to, unless state Department of Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo decides to make them. A spokesman told News reporter Jonathan D. Epstein that is “. . . something we will discuss,” a noncommittal response after a Freedom of Information Law request.
Required reporting could make redlining obvious and give the insurance superintendent reason to take action, which is why the Legislature gave him the authority in the first place. Certain insurance companies may not be anxious to have to divulge such information. Too bad. Dinallo has a powerful tool in his public-service toolbox that is just sitting idle. He needs to start using it.
