The unavailability of information on insurance unavailability: Insurance redlining and the absence of geocoded disclosure data

Abstract

The availability of insurance in urban communities has long been a contested public policy issue. One of the central points of contention has been the value of publicly available data on the geographic distribution of property insurance policies. This debate has intensified since the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which requires geocoded disclosure of mortgage lending activity, was passed. A small number of states have required disclosure of limited data. But precisely what data are available has been unclear, and their utility has been debated.

This survey of all state insurance commissioners documents what is in fact the very limited availability of insurance disclosure data. Only eight states require any disclosure of geocoded data, and just four of them make company‐level data available to the public. Data from one of those states, Wisconsin, are used to show how such data could benefit insurers, consumers, and regulators.     

Gender, Threat/Control-Override Delusions and Violence

This study brings together the threat/control-override perspective and the literature on gender and stress coping to argue that gender moderates the association between threat delusions and violence. We suggest that men are more likely than women to respond to stressors such as threat delusions with violence. We test these ideas using data from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, a multi-wave study of post-discharge psychiatric patients. Within-person results from two-level hierarchical models support the idea that men and women cope with threat delusions differently. Specifically, we find that men are significantly more likely to engage in violence during periods when they experience threat delusions, compared with periods when they do not experience threat delusions. In contrast, women are significantly less likely to engage in violence during times when they experience threat delusions, compared with periods when they do not. We discuss these findings in light of the literature on gender and stress coping.     

Dissection of the prongs of ALI. A retrospective assessment of criminal responsibility by the psychiatric staff of the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center

The staff of the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center has systematically reassessed the impact of the proposed modification of the ALI test removing the second prong. Findings of this retrospective survey reveal few changes in the composite staff opinions reported by the hospital but many variations in the opinions of individual psychiatrists when rating the prongs independently. The effect of these changes in Maryland (while difficult to anticipate) might be an increase in litigation. The resulting fiscal impact, therefore, not only could affect the Division of Corrections but also could increase court costs. The data suggest that rather than limiting psychiatric testimony and ensuring that only the sickest patients are exculpated, the proposed truncation of ALI may have paradoxical consequences. There may be more frequent battles of the experts based on less rigorous science and potential exclusion of affective psychosis from appropriate access to the defense of insanity. While the study methods and sample size prohibit reliable conclusions concerning the likelihood of these consequences in vivo, the issues raised strongly support a need for further investigation before a relatively well-functioning legal framework is changed in favor of the untested rubric of the proposed modifications of ALI.