Kreidler Looking for Ban

 
Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is upset with the auto insurance companies. He thinks that it is ridiculous to equate credit scores with auto insurance rates and wants to see the practice made illegal. He has put forward a bill that would ban their ability to use the credit scores of their clients when determining auto insurance rates. The bill is HB 2513.
 
Kreidler says that he has heard from literally thousands of consumers who did not want their auto insurance company to be able to use their credit scoring against them. The biggest complaint was from people who had fairly good credit, and felt that they were being discriminated against even though they paid their auto insurance bills on time. They said that as they had never missed or been late on a payment, had not filed a claim or had a ticket – they should not be paying a higher rate for their auto insurance simply because of a mark on their credit report.
 
The Washington state legislature has put other protections in already in regards to auto insurance. They cannot use grades in school anymore, which is something they did quite frequently. They also looked at your level of education – so if you chose not to go to college you could end up paying more for your auto insurance than someone who did go to college.
 
The auto insurance companies say that all of this goes into coming up with an “insurance score” which determines how reliable you are for your premiums. They say that if you are not paying your regular bills then they cannot expect that you will pay your auto insurance premiums as well. Their argument is that those that pay their bills on time and have good credit are more responsible than those that don’t and therefore they should get to less for their policies.


 

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