MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Professor Valarie Blake has won this year’s Significant Scholarship Award at the West Virginia University College of Law for an article about insurance discrimination.
Blake won for “Ensuring an Underclass: Stigma in Insurance,” which will be published in the Cardozo Law Review this year.
In her article, Blake points out that the cost and coverage of insurance—whether it be car, life, housing, health, or disability insurance—varies by social factors like sexual orientation, age or gender, even though such discrimination is not allowed in other settings. Insurers defend this practice on the basis that some social groups are costlier to insure than others.
Using social science research, Blake argues that insurers are prone to the same biases as everyone else and are relying on stereotypes, rather than objective math, to decide insurance rates and coverage. The result is that the same social groups who suffer discrimination elsewhere in life also suffer insurance discrimination. Laws and regulations are needed to address and minimize this harm, she asserts.