Chapter 35 — Further Reading

Grouped by the book's three citation tiers (see the style bible). Tier 1 is verified canonical — real statutes, frameworks, and institutions you can stand behind. Tier 2 is attributed but specifics-unverified — real practices and patterns whose exact figures change and must be checked against current sources. Tier 3 is the chapter's own constructed teaching material.

If you read only one thing

Read your own state's Unfair Trade Practices Act rating provisions alongside Colorado SB21-169 and the NAIC model bulletin on the use of artificial intelligence by insurers. Put the old statute and the new one side by side and watch the test of unfair discrimination move from intent to effect — that single shift is the most important thing happening in insurance fairness, and you will spend your career inside it.

Tier 1 — Verified canonical

  • NAIC Model Unfair Trade Practices Act — the source of the "unfair discrimination between individuals of the same class and essentially the same hazard" standard adopted across the states; the foundation of §35.2 and the cost-based-rating principle.
  • Colorado SB21-169 (2021) — the statute requiring insurers to test external consumer data, algorithms, and predictive models for unfairly discriminatory outcomes against protected classes; the leading example of effect-based AI-fairness regulation (Case Study 1).
  • NAIC model bulletin on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by insurers, and the NAIC's broader work on accelerated underwriting, big data, and algorithmic accountability — the regulators' governance expectations for AI systems in insurance.
  • Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) — the federal statute prohibiting genetic discrimination in health insurance and employment; essential reading for the "GINA gap" (life, disability, and long-term-care are not covered) discussed in §35.6 and the David Okafor thread.
  • Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) — governs the use of consumer-report data, including credit-based insurance scores; the procedural backbone of the §35.3 credit-scoring debate (owned by Chapter 8).
  • Affordable Care Act (ACA) — the statute that largely eliminated medical and gender-based underwriting in individual/small-group health and instituted community rating; the clearest large-scale example of a social-fairness override of actuarial pricing (Chapter 18; §35.6, §35.7).
  • McCarran-Ferguson Act (1945) — establishes state primacy in insurance regulation, which is why fairness rules are a fifty-state patchwork rather than a single national rulebook (Chapter 4; §35.6).
  • Federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) "residential security" maps (1930s) — the public historical record of the color-coded maps that gave redlining its name; primary-source context for §35.5.

Tier 2 — Attributed, specifics unverified

  • State Department of Insurance bulletins prohibiting or restricting price optimization (mid-2010s onward) — a broad multistate pattern of regulatory action; the qualitative outcome is well attested, but the precise list of states and the exact terms of each bulletin must be read from current sources (Case Study 2).
  • Studies and investigative reporting on insurance pricing disparities by neighborhood and race (academic, regulatory, and journalistic) — the qualitative finding that, controlling for risk, coverage in predominantly minority areas can be costlier or harder to obtain is repeatedly documented; precise magnitudes vary by study, place, and line and should not be quoted as fixed figures.
  • The fairness-in-machine-learning literature on the incompatibility of demographic parity, equalized odds, and calibration when base rates differ — the mathematical result is settled; the policy implications for insurance are an active, contested area.
  • The actuarial and consumer-advocacy literature on credit-based insurance scoring — the predictive relationship is broadly accepted in the industry; the disparate-impact and causation debates remain live and value-laden (§35.3).

Tier 3 — Illustrative / constructed (this chapter)

  • The Harbor Steel & Fabrication fairness analysis — the constructed Underwriting-File beat applying the four §35.2 tests to a commercial property price, and the coastal protection-gap note; realistic but not drawn from any real account.
  • Figure 35.1, "The factor that knows too much" — the constructed length-of-tenure proxy example.
  • The three-fairness-metrics impossibility diagram and the disparate-impact audit pseudo-code — built to make the §35.4 incompatibility legible; illustrative, not executed.
  • The actuarial-vs-social-fairness spectrum diagram — a schematic device for §35.7.
  • The David Okafor genetic-test thread — the constructed life-underwriting contrast illustrating the GINA gap (the applicant is fictional; the statute and the gap are real).