Don’t use credit history, education or income to set rates
Mike Kreidler’s Jan. 22 contributing column hit the nail on the head: Credit scoring in the insurance industry is unfair and discriminatory, especially to people with low incomes [“State must end insurance industry’s use of credit scoring,” Opinion]. The time for the State Legislature to act is now.
Two bills have been introduced that will be a solution. House Bill 2513 and Senate Bill 6252 would ban the practice of using a person’s credit history, education or income to set insurance rates. Driving records and vehicle-safety records are reasonable factors for insurers to consider when pricing insurance; A person’s income, education level and credit score are not. With our economy in recession and unemployment in Washington at 9.5 percent, there is absolutely no reason we should allow insurers to squeeze already-vulnerable families on a discriminatory basis.
The insurance commissioner is probably right: Insurers are in the business of collecting premiums and they will defend any basis for doing so with whatever tactics at their disposal. Lawmakers should ignore their smokescreens and enact this legislation. This is a matter of basic fairness.
— Matt Judge, Seattle
Correlation between credit scores and costs of claims
Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is wrong to oppose the use of credit scoring in the setting of insurance rates. The use of credit scores streamlines the insurance rate-making process, allowing better anticipation of claims and better management of risk. Eliminating the use of credit scores in insurance rate-making won’t increase fairness — the practice is fair — but it will raise base insurance rates for just about everyone.
A wide variety of studies, including ones conducted by the Texas Department of Insurance and Federal Trade Commission, have documented a statistically significant link between the cost of an individual’s claims and credit scores. The Legislature will hurt Washington consumers if it takes Commissioner Kreidler’s advice.
— Matthew Glans, insurance and finance legislative specialist, Chicago
While we’re at it, throw out auto-insurance law
Washington’s mandatory auto-insurance law should be thrown out! We should set up an entirely new system that will insure everyone and provide more insurance at a price drivers can afford.
14 to 30 percent of drivers — depending on county — have no insurance. The Washington State Patrol has a record for each county and the state based on traffic stops. The problem is getting worse!
The main recipients of our auto-insurance dollars are insurance companies and lawyers. They get about half of your dough. We should be outraged but the silence is deafening.
We are paying for all those ads featuring a gecko, good-hands people and a woman dressed up in a white apron. Personal-injury lawyers simply write a demand letter to the insurance company and the matter is eventually settled netting 20 to 40 percent of the settlement. I believe that lawyers and insurance companies are in bed together. Why should they rock the boat? It is up to us!
Ask your legislator to have the UW do an independent study on “pay-at-the-pump” no-fault auto insurance — when you fill up your tank you ad a few cents a gallon for insurance.
We could adopt the auto plan of our neighbor British Columbia. Everyone there is insured and there is an 84 percent approval rating.
— Ed Patton, Yakima