When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed auto insurance reforms into law in May 2019, she promised it would guarantee “a better auto insurance system for everyone.”

She continued: “This historic deal shows that, when we put party aside, we can find common ground on our state’s toughest issues to provide realistic and affordable coverage options for drivers across Michigan.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in 2019 prohibitions in the legislation against considering non-driving factors like drivers’ zip codes, only vaguely defined “territories,” would be a good thing for residents who pay much higher rates in the Motor City, The Detroit News reported.

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“I can’t tell you how much it means to the city,” Duggan said.

By 2022, Whitmer claimed the insurance reforms “lowered costs for drivers and allowed us to deliver $400 refund checks per vehicle to drivers earlier this year.”

The law, she said, “has put money back in people’s pockets.”

But a recent investigation by The Markup and Outlier Media shows it was all smoke and mirrors, with Black residents in Detroit continuing to pay exponentially more than White residents just a few miles away.

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The news sites used an insurance agent to compare prices for three Black women who live in Detroit, comparing their rates to what they would be charged if they moved into predominantly White suburbs.

The investigation obscured the identities of the women and the insurance agent to shield the agent from potential professional repercussions.

One of the women, identified as a retired preschool teacher on a fixed income named Alana, told the news sites she quit driving because the cost of monthly auto insurance payments were more than her monthly auto payments.

“I’ve turned down at least three good-paying jobs because I couldn’t get there,” she said. “I was so hurt. I sent into a deep depression after that.”

The investigation found car insurance would cost Alana about $3,500 a year in Detroit, or nearly $300 per month, while the cost was less than $1,800 per year, or roughly $150 per month, if she moved 13 miles away.

“When you’re paying (thousands) more than someone (a few) minutes away from you, when you don’t have a different driving record, when you’re not doing anything crazy, that is egregious,” said Michelle, another Black Detroit woman who participated in the investigation, which showed she could save $2,800 per year if she moved out of Detroit.

“I’ve never had an accident, never had a car stolen, never had my tires slashed, never made a claim,” she said. “People try to come up with all these reasons, and it’s like, no, really, they just charge more because of where you live.”

For Tonya, another panelist, her insurance premium dropped by nearly $5,000 per year when quoted with an address in a White suburb 15 minutes from her home.

“Oh, I feel some type of way,” she said. “You hear of people using another address, but it’s different when you see it live in action. It’s atrocious.”

The median Detroit household spends 1 out of every 7 dollars earned on car insurance, the investigation concluded.

The reasons for the ongoing problems stem from loopholes in the law that allow insurance companies to group risks based on territories, which can include census tracts or other custom boundaries. While the reforms prohibited “redlining” by blocking access to insurance based on location, they didn’t prohibit companies from charging more in certain territories.

“[I] believe that the language was written in such a way to actually make territorial rating worse and more discriminatory,” said Douglas Heller, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group pushing to improve Michigan’s insurance market. “This was the insurance industry pandering to some politicians who needed to have some cover but didn’t have any particular concern about preventing discrimination.”

Other loopholes allow companies to circumvent bans on criteria such as sex, marital status, homeownership, education level, occupation, and credit scores, according to the investigation.

“The Markup and Outlier’s investigation found that the reform allowed insurance companies legal ways to, in some fashion, circumvent every prohibition it instituted on assessing customers using these protected characteristics,” according to the news sites. “These easily exploitable loopholes allowed insurers to charge some of the highest prices in the country to people living in Michigan’s black communities.”

While the investigation showed Black motorists continue to suffer the most despite the 2019 reforms, other analysis shows they were bad for Michiganders in general.

“An in-depth look at average car insurance rates in Michigan” by MarketWatch Guides found the state’s drivers on average pay 81% more than the national average – the most in the country.

The analysis found Michigan drivers pay an average of $1,360 per year, or about $113 per month, for minimum coverage, and $3,643 per year, or $304 per month, for full coverage car insurance.

The national average for minimum coverage is $52 per month, or $627 per year, while it’s $167 a month, or $2,008 per year, for full coverage.

“Michigan car insurance rates are as much as 81% to 117% higher than the national average,” researchers wrote.

MarketWatch found that while average Michigan insurance rates are more than double the national average for every age group, it’s the state’s youngest drivers who have the highest rates with an average premium of $12,921 per year, or $1,077 per month.