(The Center Square) – The director of an Illinois consumer advocacy group is drawing attention to a new report that shows drivers with poorer credit scores pay higher premiums for car insurance.
Consumer Federation of America released the findings detailing the impact of auto insurers’ use of consumer credit information on good drivers with only fair or poor credit scores.
“On average in Illinois, they found that drivers with poor credit pay $491 more than the same driver with the same clean driving record with excellent credit, so it’s a 116% increase, more than double,” said Abe Scarr, Illinois director of the consumer advocacy organization Public Interest Research Group.
The overwhelming majority of auto insurers practice this discrimination. Only California, Hawaii and Massachusetts prohibit the use of credit information in auto insurance pricing.
Scarr said there needs to be more regulation of car insurance companies.
“There’s only one other state that has as little regulation of car insurance rates as Illinois, it’s just us and Wyoming,” Scarr said.
A measure that would ban discriminatory pricing for car insurance using non-driving factors like a person’s credit score stalled at the Illinois statehouse last spring.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, said he plans to reintroduce the legislation.
“Once again, the data bears out that excellent drivers are being charged staggering premiums only because their credit scores are low,” Guzzardi said in a statement. “States need to regulate this kind of unfair pricing practice, and I plan to work hard to see that Illinois does so.”
