American values have always given top priority to the right to privacy. But are you aware of the amount of information you unknowingly pass over to your insurance company, when you apply for auto insurance. Most of this information ends up in database companies who make profit out of selling information about you. Your credit is what most insurance company wants to know. They use this credit data to decide about your auto insurance policy premiums. Use of this practice has expanded drastically because through your credit information they get a clear picture about your history with your previous auto insurer. Even before you approaching them they have already placed you in a category through which they will not end up in the loosing side. To be fair, they precisely know what type of claim you are likely to make and not to make and what is the best premium for you. Every auto insurance company scrutinizes your credit history acquired from the database company and gives you a rank, of which you are unaware of. The rank will categorize you under preferred, standard or high-risk. Next they look is your payment history. If you are a timely payer you will move towards the preferred category. But if you have a bad history of payment then you move the opposite direction. This entire ranking, which takes place without your knowledge, is due to the information you have passed over to your earlier auto insurance company. An odd activity the month before you buy your new auto insurance will put you under the high-risk group. The odd activity might even stop an auto insurance company from selling you the policy. ChoicePoint and the Insurance Services Office (ISO) provide auto insurance companies with all the necessary information they need. Your name, address, phone number, claims, credit report, criminal record if any, and the most curious aspect any auto insurance company would like to hear, your driving history. ChoicePoint has a database called Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange or CLUE. The information they gather from your credit history, gives you a rank. When you apply for auto insurance, the company you applied asks for your rank and they immediately get the answer into what category you fit. The All Claims databases maintained by ISO, mainly looks into fraud. Unusual or suspicious behavior in your credit history will be notified to the insurer. They also maintain a record about the claims that have dragged on to courts. Apart from this top auto insurance companies also have their own database. The government agencies of your state also have all the necessary information. If you are curious to know about your motor vehicle report you can approach your state's department. TransUnion, Equifax, Experian are some of the companies who can provide you with your credit history. The CLUE report of ChoicePoint is also available but you have to pay for it. If you have any difference of opinion with the ISO's All Claims report. You can acquire a copy and dispute it. So, next time when you approach an auto insurance company keep it in mind that he knows a whole lot of things about you, which you are unaware of. |
