Date:         Sat, 8 Feb 2003 10:30:54 -0700
Reply-To:     jbrush@AROS.NET
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Brush <jbrush@AROS.NET>
Subject:      Re: Insurance - credit check
In-Reply-To:  <00bc01c2cf40$28e7c650$319c4094@BILLPC>

>Insurance companies do check your credit report, because people with poor
>credit file more claims.  Who knows why.  Now, as to affecting your
>credit report, well, that gets a bit more complicated.  Most lenders
>today use the FICO score.  Multiple inquiries of some kinds will, in
>fact, lower your FICO.  However, the system is set up to ignore certain
>things, such as insurance company inquiries.  Most of you probably know
>that when you go to a car dealership and test drive a car, they need to
>make a copy of your driver's license "for their records."

>You may not know that they run a credit report while you are out on the
>test drive.  The credit bureaus know this, and ignore multiple inquiries
>from car dealers, assuming that you are car shopping.  Since many
>companies, such as department stores and credit card companies, routinely
>check your credit every few months to watch for problems, the credit
>bureaus ignore these, also.  They will lower your score for multiple
>attempts to obtain new credit.

I appreciate the information. The contradiction lies in what the news and
the state has reported, vs what is reported here. Frankly, I would tend to
believe here, more than there :)

However, the big issue was created due to what the reports said was the
damage to a credit rating by multiple requests. I guess since I don't know
you folks as well as a lot of you do, I will just ask Bill to explain how
he knows this and if there is a way to verify this. Not so much as I don't
believe you, but its pretty important as far as I can tell.

So if there is no problem with the credit report, someone want to
speculate whey it took a session of the state legislature to pass the
stupid law allowing the checks in the first place?? :-) Does it require
the state law to allow the insurance companies to check you out? I have no
respect for the legal doings of the state anyway.

The more stupid part of all of this is that just asking for a quote should
not entitle the IC to ANY personal information like this. A simple
disclaimer on the quote form about a credit check or a DMV check being
required and how it could affect the quote if I choose to go there would
suffice. Everyone wants the power to control us.

I know its no friday, but I would like to understand this so I can be in
charge if I have to.

Thanks all,

John