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Newsletter: Markup Futures

Why is Michigan’s car insurance so darn high? We’ll tell you.

July 18, 2024 11:00 ET

Dear friends,

We’re taking you to Michigan today where insurance reforms were supposed to make policies “fair and reasonable” for all drivers. But as one of our reporters put it, lawmakers left in loopholes big enough to drive through, and in the end, it’s Black residents getting penalized.

Michigan’s law banned insurers from charging drivers different prices based on characteristics that have nothing to do with their driving — characteristics like their zip code, marital status, or occupation. Except, despite banning insurers from using zip codes, they didn’t ban insurers from using location.

Our investigation, in partnership with Outlier Media in Detroit, found that years later, insurers are now using anything from counties to census tracts to small squares they invented themselves, to represent where a driver lives, and take that into account when pricing their car insurance.

One Detroit resident we talked with would have seen her $300 monthly car insurance bill drop to $150 — if she moved 13 miles away to a mostly White suburb.

We’ve been bringing you stories like this for five years, exposing how technology shapes our lives.

And now that we have officially joined forces with CalMatters, we’ll have even more opportunities to pursue our mission.

You’ll still hear from me, but I also want you to meet someone from my new team: Sonya Quick.

Sonya’s work at CalMatters (and now also The Markup!) is focused on encouraging people to support our work through financial contributions, helping us crowdsource data, giving active feedback, or acting as story ambassadors. You’ll hear her refer to you as a “member” which is our way of saying “you’re a valued part of our work in a variety of ways.”

I hope you know how much your support means to me and I look forward to you getting to hear from Sonya about our combined nonprofit newsroom.

And please consider supporting our latest investigation with a tax-deductible donation. Your support, in any amount, powers our public interest reporting and leads to real change.

With gratitude for your continued support,

Sisi

P.S. If you think your insurance is too high, and you want to know how you can get a discount, we wrote about that too.

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