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Fair Housing Group Accuses Insurance Company of Redlining
On December 21, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) announced that it filed with HUD a housing discrimination complaint against a major insurance company regarding the offering of hazard insurance in a certain geographic area. According to the statement filed in support of its complaint, NFHA alleges that the company refuses to underwrite homeowners’ insurance policies for homes that have flat roofs in the Wilmington, Delaware area, a policy that NFHA charges has a racially disparate impact on African-American and minority communities. Although insurance and insurers are not explicitly covered in the Fair Housing Act, NFHA argues that federal courts have given deference to HUD’s interpretation of the statute, holding that the Fair Housing Act applies to all types of discriminatory insurance practices. NFHA’s complaint is based on its own testing of independent insurance agencies and a single university study of the relationship between roof type and race in the Wilmington area. NFHA claims that its testing of six insurance agencies shows that independent insurance agents were willing to underwrite policies on homes with flat roofs, while agents affiliated only with the insurance company targeted by NFHA cited a company policy that disallowed underwriting policies on such homes. Further, NFHA claims that the university study found a statistically significant relationship between minority populations and homes that have flat roofs, and therefore the “no flat roof policy” disproportionately impacts African-American and minority communities. Moreover, NFHA claims that there is no business justification for such a policy and that the insurance company does not apply the same policy in other cities. Under its fair housing complaint procedures HUD will now conduct its own investigation and determine whether further administrative action is required.
DOJ Settles Fair Housing Disparate Impact Suit
On August 27, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved a settlement between the DOJ and GFI Mortgage Bankers, Inc., a nonbank mortgage lender, resolving allegations that certain of the lender’s pricing policies disproportionately impacted African-American and Hispanic borrowers in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). The DOJ brought the case in part under the disparate impact theory of discrimination, by which it attempts to establish discrimination based solely on a statistical analysis of the outcomes of a neutral policy without having to show that the lender intentionally discriminated against certain borrowers. In the consent order, the lender acknowledged that a statistical analysis performed by the government indicated that the note interest rates and fees it charged on mortgage loans to qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers were higher than those charged to non-Hispanic white borrowers. Prior to the settlement, the lender had filed a motion to dismiss the DOJ lawsuit, arguing that the DOJ’s disparate impact claims are not cognizable under the FHA or ECOA, and challenging the government’s statistical analysis. Under the agreement, the lender agreed to pay $3.5 million over five years in compensation to several hundred borrowers identified by the DOJ, as well as a $55,000 civil penalty. The lender also agreed to enhance certain of its lending policies and monitor and document loan prices and pricing decisions. Whether disparate impact claims are cognizable under the FHA remains unsettled, though the U.S. Supreme Court may have an opportunity to address the issue in the near future. BuckleySandler recently prepared a white paper examining the issue and explaining why the FHA does not permit disparate impact claims. A copy of DOJ’s announcement of the settlement may be found at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/August/12-crt-1052.html.
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