Slave-Era and Race-Based Insurance
The Detroit Bureau Automotive Project
Slave-Era and Race-Based Insurance
Met-Life Settlement (in PDF format) - also visit lifesettle.com
Met-Life Settlement Notice Card (in PDF format)
Slave-Era and Race-Based Insurance
Chicago's Unitrin Insurance Group recently agreed to pay $27 million in restitution to African-American policyholders across the country -- over 7,000 in Illinois alone -- who were charged more for insurance because of the color of their skin.
The settlement was not controversial. The company had sustained race-based policies for years. They charged blacks more than whites for the same insurance. They robbed black policy holders on the basis of the color of their skin. As the Illinois insurance commissioner noted, the settlement was very lenient, since the company benefited over time from the use of that money and their black policy holders lost the ability to invest the money in other ways.
In California, a state law forced an investigation of all insurance companies that issued insurance policies to slave owners on their slaves. In various states, scattered investigations have revealed race-based patterns of discrimination in the prices charged for housing, for cars, for small business loans, for insurance.
Every state should mandate an investigation of its companies' race-based practices - from slavery to the present. Let's move from rhetoric to reality, from a sense of injustice to the measure of injury. You can help open the records and bring light to this situation.
You can contact your state’s insurance commissioner to ask for a report similar to the California report. Follow the link below to find how to contact the insurance commissioner in your state.
For a listing of your state insurance commissioner see:
http://www.naic.org/
To see the report prepared by California Insurance Commissioner Low's report (listing of companies and families) on slave-era policies see:
http://www.insurance.ca.gov/
For further information about the issue of slave-era insurance practices and race-based premiums for insurance, see our press releases of 04/23/2002 and 05/01/2002
If your are interested in having insurance education classes instructed at your church, please contact Bonita Parker, COO of the Rainbow/PUSH 1000 Churches Connected program:
mailto: bparker@rainbowpush.org
If you are a minority supplier interested in business opportunities with insurance companies, please contact Scott Sillers, trade bureau director in the Wall Street Project office:
mailto: ssillers@rainbowpush.org
If you are interested in employment opportunities with an insurance company, please contact Sonja Price, also in the Wall Street Project office:
mailto: sprice@rainbowpush.org
If you are you interested in researching slavery and families of that era, go to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture -- http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html
Watch this site for a viewer response section.
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