That lizard’s mighty cute, but does he earn six figures?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Yesterday, the Consumer Federation of America charged that Geico Corp. uses customers’ educational backgrounds and career information as criteria in setting auto insurance rates. According to the CFA, Geico has utilized rating methods and underwriting guidelines in 44 states that are directly tied to education and occupation.

Geico responded that the charge was “an offensive attempt to link fundamentally fair and actuarially sound industry practices with invidious discrimination.” However, Robert Hunter, the CFA’s director of insurance, said that under Geico’s rating method, “a New Orleans factory worker without a high school education would pay $2,636 for insurance, 91 percent more the $1,382 that a white-collar worker with a graduate degree would pay for the same vehicle and location.”

The CFA also said that other insurers, including Liberty Mutual and Allstate, were starting to use Geico’s methods, and it asked the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to intervene.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate