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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

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mc32·

Isn’t discriminating by age okay in insurance policies?

Life insurance is higher for older people. Drivers insurance is higher for younger people as well as for men, no?

So it seems there are exceptions.

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It’s not discrimination — pricing is based on cost, actuarial risk in the case of life insurance. There are even pooled models where otherwise too risky people can get insurance.

Discrimination comes in when you make decisions or steer business based on a protected attribute. If you do a mailing and exclude ethnic Jewish names, that’s discrimination. If you advertise in a catholic church bulletin, but not at a synagogue, that isn’t.

I just applied for private life insurance. I do think it's possible what this industry does as a matter of standard practice probably is discrimination, but they legitimize it through technocratic means. They'll say something like there's an average risk profile that rises over time with age. The way they further meat this out is by intrusively inspecting open medical history and repeating pedantic questions to you about that medical history. If you pass the pedantic questions, you get a lower rate based on demonstrated medical history.

So, I think my perception would be a little bit of both.

Yes, but not for reason of age alone.

Creditworthiness is judged based on history, not on age or race etc. I.e. egalitarianism.

If your history is bad, lower limit etc.

I dunno. Life insurance is heavily weighted for age, all other things being equal.

discriminating by age is ok in the workplace. only 40+ is a protected class in the US.

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