The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Barack Obama is a direct, if not immediate, response to a financial crisis that started with predatory lending targeted at minority communities.
Lost in recent years of debate over what to do about the nation's (and the world's) financial crisis is the problem of insurance redlining that plagues those same neighborhoods. The Dodd-Frank bill offers a golden opportunity to effectively respond to the racial discrimination that still permeates this industry.
In 1988, a sales manager for the American Family Mutual Insurance Company told one of his agents, in writing, to "quit writing all those blacks!!"–a message that no doubt was intended to discourage doing business in non-white neighborhoods. Apparently agents throughout the industry took the advice, and some are still doing so.
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