Detroit Free Press
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080825/BLOG2505/80825027/1068/opinion
Insurance companies in Michigan no longer will be able to use customers? credit scores to set home and auto insurance premiums if a state Court of Appeals ruling stands. Reform advocates are happy, arguing that credit scoring is another way insurance companies discriminate against urban policy holders.
The insurance industry will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. The industry says, percentage-wise, as many people in Detroit and other urban areas get good credit discounts as elsewhere in the state. It also says studies show a direct correlation between credit scores and risk, and that using the scores is a good way to individualize rates.
What do you think? Have you had an experience where credit scoring affected your insurance rates, one way or the other? Is this fair? What else can be done to bring down the high cost of insurance in Detroit, Flint, Benton Harbor and other central cities?
As a resident of the city of Detroit, I probably pay double what a motorist in, say, Birmingham, pays, even though I live in a protected community and walk to work. The guy who leased me a car back in 2003 even told me to get a forwarding address outside Detroit so that I could get lower rates. He said all his Detroit customers did it.
Original source: http://creditscorenewsaggregator.wordpress.com/?p=26
