For almost a decade, consumer and civil rights advocates have urged New Jersey lawmakers to bar companies from basing car insurance rates on socioeconomic factors they deem discriminatory and that have nothing to do with driving — things like credit history, marital status, education level, occupation, and zip code.
They renewed their plea Monday, when the Senate’s commerce committee called up a long-stalled bill for consideration — its third committee hearing since it was first introduced in 2018. The bill’s supporters expressed frustration with the legislative inaction, with Danielle Combs of the NAACP’s New Jersey state conference calling insurers’ practice “thinly veiled discrimination.”
“This proposed law is about more than car insurance rates. It’s about justice. It’s about dismantling systems that quietly but powerfully keep our communities at a disadvantage,” Combs said. “When a single mother in Newark, Trenton, or Camden has to pay double what someone in a wealthier suburb pays for the same coverage and the same driving record, that is not fair, that is not equal, and that is not acceptable.”
Read full article here.