@marmaladepie wrote:
Hi there,
We’ve had experience w auto insurance in NY CT NJ and CA (yes we’ve moved a lot).
On the east coast, your credit score is determines your rates. While in CA a female gets better rates even if the spouse/male has higher fico. Interesting huh? We found this out by shopping around and testing who’s name is on as primary.
I agree w getting a bundle (w renters or even umbrella insurance). And if you can pay in full the premium as monthly payments add on a $5-10 fee per payment made.
We’ve also tried the Progressive snapshot program where they analyze your driving habits to give you up to 30% off your policy. It was avail on the east coast but CA laws doesn’t allow it. DM me if you want tips on this 😉
Insurers do indeed use credit scores in determining how much they charge customers. (Scores are naturally only one of the considerations.) They use credit scores in every state except California, Massachusetts and Hawaii -- where state law prohibits it.
They typically use a non-FICO scoring system favored by the insurance industry. The most widespread model is made by LexisNexis and uses (I believe) Equifax data. There's another competing model that is made by TransUnion and uses its data.
The two non-FICO models I just mentioned are similar to FICO in the sense that high CC utilization, late payments, etc. hurt your score. They are different in that other things on the report can hurt your score, e.g....
* The presence of store cards
* The presence of auto accounts (PepBoys, AutoZone, Firestone, Goodyear, etc.)
* Having a loan as your oldest account (weird but true)
New credit (inquiries, recently opened accounts, etc.) freaks the insurance score out much more than it does FICO, and the insurance model considers any account that is < 24 months old to be New.
All of which is to say that even with our OP's clean driving record (etc.) if he has a higher premium it might be because his insurance credit scores are low.
