Prof. Daniel Schwarcz Quoted by the New York Times about Insurance Company that Uses Subjective Factors when Judging Potential Customers

Professor Daniel Schwarcz was quoted in the New York Times about Erie Insurance who defends its practice of telling agents to use subjective factors when judging a potential customer. Maryland regulators had begun investigating Erie’s business after independent agents who sold its policies accused Erie of punishing them for selling policies to Black and Hispanic customers, most of whom lived in densely populated parts of cities such as Baltimore where the insurer said there was too much risk. “If you have underwriting happening at the level of the individual agent, there’s no way to review that and it’s much more likely that you’re going to get bias,” said Schwarcz. “There are all kinds of conscious and unconscious biases involved.”