Those in the realty business say location is everything. Whether you are buying or selling, a good location always commands a good price. When you apply this to the insurance industry, location is also a vital part of the assessment of risk. Excluding California which had the wisdom to exclude the use of zip codes in calculating auto insurance premiums, almost all the other states allow insurers to price risk based on where you and your vehicle live. If this is a high-crime area where vehicles are more routinely stolen or vandalised, and there is a higher than average number of traffic accidents, the premiums will reflect the higher risks. This will be so even though you are a driver with long exprience and no claims history. When it comes to business insurance, the same principles apply, but the detail is slightly different.

When you are planning a new business or making one of your routine assessments of the prevailing risks, one of the key decisions is the value of the liability coverage you put in place. Although there are some types of liability policy specific to areas of business or trade, the majority of the general commercial policies offer coverage against the risk of injury to employees and third parties who are injured by the way the business is run. Because the cost of medical treatment has been rising faster than inflation over the last five years, premiums have also been rising fast. When you add in the risk of having to pay incidental and consequential damages for losses flowing from the injuries, the total value of coverage may have to be quite significant, particularly if the net worth of people using your business may make them expensive to injure. So where does this leave the assessment of your business location(s)?

Central city areas often have a higher crime rate than suburbs. This can put employees and customers at a higher risk of violent assault, but the more usual reason for premium hikes is the level of petty crime. The rate will also rise if you occupy older premises which represent a fire hazard either because of building materials or a lack of easy escape routes. Look carefully at what your neighbors are doing. If their businesses have a higher fire risk, e.g. as dry cleaners, they produce fumes, your own rates will be high. If there is traffic congestion, how long will it take emergency services to arrive when you call 911? Are there fire hydrants nearby? Where is the nearest emergency room? If you lease your premises, what are the minimum amounts of coverage required and are there covenants for you to insure common parts, the parking lots, etc? There are so many different factors to take into account.

This is something to discuss with your existing insurer or agent. Remember what may look good, e.g. a waterfront location, may come with a flood risk or some other threat that is not so obvious. It may save you a lot of money in premiums if you move to a different location. As always, you should get the maximum possible number of business insurance quotes. If there is any doubt at all, always hold a discussion on site to discuss the detail of the location risks. It is not enough to rely on the business insurance quotes alone. You should always negotiate to get the best terms.

The lawmakers in Colorado are debating a change in the law to correct the gender discrimination currently requiring women to pay more than men to insure their health. The facts are discouraging. In some 90% of all private health plans, women have premium rates 60% higher than men. This is so even though the statistics show women enjoy better health than men, have less bad habits and make fewer claims. This is so even though the men used for comparative purposes are significantly older. And, if you feel you need any more confirmation of the basic unfairness, even men who smoke pay less than female non-smokers. As one of the women promoting the bill commented: insurers often refuse coverage because the applicant has a pre-existing condition. The way the premiums are loaded, it seems being a woman is a pre-existing condition.

The people who are paid to speak on behalf of the insurance industry usually fall back on the tried and trusted defense that women have medical needs specific to their gender. The most often quoted example is maternity and prenatal care. Ignoring the fact that men also have problems specific to their gender, such as erectile dysfunction, women are still quoted premiums 60% higher on policies excluding reproductive health needs. In other words, the discrimination persists even though the scope of the medical coverage is identical. So what’s going on? The answer, in this instance, is slightly complicated. If we start with auto insurance, it’s common knowledge that young men are statistically more likely than any other group of drivers to crash into another vehicle or some stationary object.

Thus, where the policy discriminates between different groups of drivers, young men pay significantly more than women who tend to drive more safely. Not all auto policies do discriminate. By spreading the risk among a big group of drivers, the good subsidize the bad. But, most auto insurers do set different premium rates for different groups of drivers distinguished by gender and age. In medicine, it’s a fact that men fall ill and die, whereas women tend to recover from illnesses. This is one of the reasons why women have a longer life expectancy than men. But it also explains why women cost more. They survive for longer with chronic problems requiring continuing treatment. Thus, if the premium is a reflection of the likely costs of treatment over a person’s lifetime, it may appear slightly more reasonable to charge women higher premiums. Except this ignores the general rule that private health insurance stops at 65 as Medicare kicks in. The major long-term costs tend to occur after 65.

Colorado looks as though it may join the one or two other states with equality provisions. There’s no evidence from these other states that men now have to pay significantly more. For now, insurers simply make less profit. As a woman, it’s particularly important to research exactly what the different companies offer. Because of this, searching for cheap health insurance is a greater challenge. Always refer to the websites of the companies making the best quotes to see if there are additional discounts available or special policies for women. If there seems to be no cheap health insurance available, talk directly with the insurers to see whether the difference between the male and female premium rates can be reduced. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a state committed to equality. It is for you to protect yourself as best as possible.

Often, California has been in the lead when it comes to legislating for fairness. When a service industry is acting in an arbitrary way and damaging the interests of consumers, you can usually rely on Sacramento to do something about it. So, for example, the Insurance Commissioner instructed auto insurance companies not to rely on ZIP codes when writing policies. The real basis on which to assess risk should always be the individual driver. It’s fair to look at the person’s experience, driving record, how far he or she drives every year, etc. That way you reward the good drivers with lower premiums and hit the bad drivers with higher premiums. This ends the discriminations of higher premiums for people living in predominantly black or Latino communities.

It would be great if we could see this change sweeping across the US, not just in auto insurance, but for all classes of insurance. Unfortunately, the insurance industry has fought the change tooth and nail wherever it has been proposed. Lobbyists with deep pockets have been able to keep the legislators at bay. The ZIP code approach remains the norm.

The most recent piece of research comes out of Chicago and relates to health plans. It seems it’s cheaper to live in the suburbs. The research used just over 3,000 ZIP codes in the Chicago area and, when analysing the rates charged, found that people living in the blue-collar suburbs west and south of Chicago paid almost 25% less for their insurance than those living in the downtown areas. Similarly, the residents of the northern suburbs paid about 15% less. Spread the net more widely and it turns out that everyone living between 15 and 25 miles from the downtown area pays an average of 13.5% less, while those who have moved 25 to 40 miles out of the city pay an average 25% less.

There are obvious explanations. The hospitals and clinics in different areas attract doctors and healthcare providers with different levels of experience and expertise. Operating costs will also change with local conditions. The level of support for public facilities and programs from local government naturally varies depending on the local tax take and political factors. These affect the rates for services the insurers can negotiate with the local provider networks. And then there are all the intangible factors based on the wealth or poverty of an area, the percentage of people without current health insurance, and so on. Put everything together and profiling by geography may produce very different results. This leaves us with an uncomfortable reality. As it stands, the health insurance industry is unregulated. It can charge what it likes using whatever factors it wishes to consider significant. As and when the healthcare reforms pass through Congress, some practices that produce unfairness will disappear, e.g. no more discrimination based on gender, no more discrimination by denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, no more caps on lifetime benefits, and so on. But the ZIP code abuse will not be affected. No matter where you live, you will be judged not on your actual health records but the “accident” of your address. Perhaps you should consider relocating to a better area to get the best health insurance rates.