Articles by Birny Birnbaum

Insurance credit scoring: 21st century redlining and the end of insurance

You’ve just been laid off from your job. Or your daughter has a major medical problem that your health insurance (if you have any) doesn’t fully cover. Or you’ve just gotten a divorce. These three life events account for 87 …

Insurance credit scoring: 21st Century redlining and the end of insurance

Disagreements about insurance credit scoring really boil down to what “fair” means. For insurers, “fair” means that an insurer can produce data showing a statistical relationship between credit scores and insurance losses. For consumer groups, such a statistical relationship is …

Insurance credit scoring: 21st century redlining and the end of insurance

You’ve just been laid off from your job. Or your daughter has a major medical problem that your health insurance (if you have any) doesn’t fully cover. Or you’ve just gotten a divorce. These three life events account for 87 …

Insurance credit scoring: 21st century redlining and the end of insurance

You’ve just been laid off from your job. Or your daughter has a major medical problem that your health insurance (if you have any) doesn’t fully cover. Or you’ve just gotten a divorce. These three life events account for 87 …

A Consumer View on Loss-History Databases

Thanks to the leadership of Commissioner Jim Poolman, North Dakota insurance consumers now have common-sense protections against unfair underwriting and rating actions by insurers because of information in loss history databases, such as the Claims Loss Underwriting Exchange and Automated …

North Dakota’s SB 2186 Should Be a Template for NAIC Model

Thanks to the leadership of Commissioner Jim Poolman, North Dakota insurance consumers now have common sense protections against unfair underwriting and rating actions by insurers because of information in loss history databases, such as CLUE and A-Plus. While the consumer …

North Dakota Sets Example on Loss-History Databases

Thanks to the leadership of Commissioner Jim Poolman, North Dakota insurance consumers now have common-sense protections against unfair underwriting and rating actions by insurers because of information in loss history databases, such as the Claims Loss Underwriting Exchange and Automated …

Broker Fee Scandal Highlights Need for Market-Conduct Reform

With the latest insurance-industry market conduct problem, consumers once again see not only the failure of state insurance regulation to protect them but the refusal of state insurance regulators to take responsibility for their failure. The latest actions by state …

Action Needed to Address State-Based Insurance Regulation

With the latest insurance industry market conduct problem, consumers once again see not only the failure of state insurance regulation to protect them but the refusal of state insurance regulators to take responsibility for their failure. The latest actions by …

Action Needed to Address State-Based Insurance Regulation

With the latest insurance industry market conduct problem, consumers once again see not only the failure of state insurance regulation to protect them but the refusal of state insurance regulators to take responsibility for their failure. The latest actions by …