Insurance companies do check your credit report, because people with poor credit file more
claims.  Who knows why.  Now, as to affecting your credit report, well, that gets a bit more
complicated.  Most lenders today use the FICO score.  Multiple inquiries of some kinds will, in
fact, lower your FICO.  However, the system is set up to ignore certain things, such as
insurance company inquiries.  Most of you probably know that when you go to a car dealership
and test drive a car, they need to make a copy of your driver's license "for their records."

You may not know that they run a credit report while you are out on the test drive.  The credit
bureaus know this, and ignore multiple inquiries from car dealers, assuming that you are car
shopping.  Since many companies, such as department stores and credit card companies, routinely
check your credit every few months to watch for problems, the credit bureaus ignore these,
also.  They will lower your score for multiple attempts to obtain new credit.

Another big factor for your FICO score is how close your accounts are to the limits.  Oddly
enough, if you have a couple of maxed credit cards, getting another one and leaving the balance
zero can actually raise your score, since your total credit card debt is now a lower percentage
of your total limit.

Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Brush" <jbrush@AROS.NET>
>
> Not sure if it matters, but it really bugs me. Here in Utah, if you ask
> for an insurance quote, the law says that you have given permission to the
> insurance company to do a credit check on you.
>
> I am told that every time someone checks your credit, your rating drops.
> Kind of prevents me from shopping around very much for an insurance quote.