Posted On: June 14, 2006, 9:31 am CDT

Posted By: Greg

Why would an insurance company want to discriminate against a certain economic class ? Insurers want to be competitive and profitable. That means they must offer rates low enough to attract customers, but high enough to make a profit. They wouldn't want to charge any more than they have to or they won't get the business, their competitor will. The argument that it is discriminatory is baseless from a business perspective. The only reason for a business to discriminate against a certain group is if that group's costs are higher. If the costs are higher for that group, then it justifies the use of that criteria in setting rates.

As for the comments questioning where was the uproar when gender was used in setting rates, it is my belief that there was no uproar because it was men who got charged higher rates. If the introduction of gender raised women's rates more than mens, I think there would have been quite a commotion.