Risky business?

What do some insurers have against journalists? Recent cases of apparently discriminatory underwriting have reporters, some insurance regulators, and even a few underwriters wondering.

Last September Hamilton Masters, a senior producer at KHOU-TV in Houston, posted a query on the Computer Assisted Reporting and Research List (CARR-L) electronic bulletin board after learning that a colleague had been denied insurance because he was a reporter. Masters was trying to see if other journalists had experienced similar discrimination. And, apparently, they had. Several reported insurance trouble. In three cases, four counting Masters's co-worker, journalists had sought property/casualty insurance of one kind or another, had paid their fees, signed their forms, and considered their policies finalized, only to receive notification within two months that their coverage was denied -- because of their occupation. A fifth turned up in The Salt Lake City Tribune.

Insurers can be wary of "high profile" customers, and they sometimes put journalists in this category, along with entertainers, professional athletes, and politicians. This may figure if your last name is Cronkite or Brokaw, but what if it's Cray? Or Brown? Or Getter?

Jennifer Cray, former lifestyle editor for The Daily Breeze (circulation 82,000) of Torrance, California, and Marc Igler, her husband, an assistant city editor of the same paper, were denied homeowner's insurance last August by AAA Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club of Southern California. Cray says that a week after signing on with AAA her agent called with questions about her husband's occupation. A week after that, AAA cancelled their coverage because of "unacceptable exposure under the Exchange's guidelines." Alan Morris, director of underwriting for AAA, explains that his company requires special approval procedures "for applicants in high profile positions with higher exposure to liability because of celebrity status." AAA, he says, considers newspaper reporters, editors, and publishers, along with professional athletes and politicians, "high profile."

Steve Brown, a television news reporter in Buffalo, bought renter's insurance last February from Commercial Union Insurance Company, the same company that held his auto coverage. In March, an underwriter faxed Brown's agent, writing "Please let me know what type of reporter he is and where he works" because "we would not want to write a high profile occupation as this would greatly increase our liability exposure." In April, Commercial Union canceled Brown's insurance, giving as a reason "occupational liability."

John Getter, an investigative reporter for KHOU-TV in Houston, was one month into his homeowner's policy last fall when an underwriter for Security National Insurance Company canceled it after he recognized the reporter from a television feature. According to Getter, the underwriter explained to his agent that the reporter "might do a story that pisses someone off, and they may want to blow his house up." A company spokesman says Security National has no policy to automatically deny journalists. Meanwhile, Mike Androvett, an investigative reporter for KXAS in Dallas, says he had a similar experience this past September, when he tried to consolidate his auto and renter's insurance with that of his fiancee.

And, in a case that didn't turn up in Masters's electronic net, Dawn House, government editor for The Salt Lake Tribune, encountered a problem at American States Insurance Company. A few weeks after House paid for her auto insurance, she received a call from her agent. House says he asked, "Have you ever been personally threatened or had anyone angry with you for the type of work you do?" He then informed her, she says, that American States does not cover reporters because people "blow up their cars." House was allowed to keep her coverage after the agent determined she was an editor.

The actual risk journalists pose to insurers is unclear. They do, occasionally, get sued; and in the eighteen years since the murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, ten journalists have been killed in the U.S. for reasons apparently related to their work (all but one were immigrant journalists working in a language other than English, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists). Still, as one actuary said, "You need almost a million subjects before your statistics become credible, and there simply aren't that many high-profile journalists." Mark Kincaid, of the Texas Office of Public Insurance Counsel, thinks some companies may have statistical evidence about journalists but he suspects that "in some cases it is probably more of a hunch or an estimate." Occupational statistics are more readily available for worker's compensation insurance than for auto and home coverage. The Compensation Insurance Rating Board, a Manhattan-based numbers factory that calculates risk and rates for worker's compsation coverage, places journalists in relatively low-risk categories -- with salesmen and clerks.

While occupational underwriting may seem statistically tenuous and unfairly discriminatory, it is legal. Underwriter's guidelines, meanwhile, the formula by which an insurer gauges an applicant's liability and desirability, are considered quasi trade secrets. Consumers and even regulators, therefore, may be unaware of the biases operating beneath the surface. But is occupational redlining a threat or an inconvenience to journalists? All of the journalists mentioned in this article were able to find insurance. None was denied by a second company. John Getter even saved $ 10 a year.

So it could be worse. And it is, perhaps, in Great Britain. Consider a recent article in The Guardian about U.K. underwriting standards, which states that "several insurance underwriters said journalists are a risk because of the high consumption of alcohol traditionally associated with the profession." British underwriters are either more exacting or more candid.

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