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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | May 4, 2017 04:25 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Vanessa Lowery Brown |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Prohibiting Credit-Based Insurance Scoring (Re-introduction) |
| In the near future, I will be re-introducing legislation – House Bill 1887 of the 2013-14 Legislative Session – that would prohibit credit-based insurance scoring in Pennsylvania. Credit-based insurance scoring is a discriminatory practice that uses credit as a surrogate for race and income in insurance underwriting decisions. As of this writing, there are three states (California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts) that prohibit insurers from using credit scores to determine how much drivers should pay. In addition, it is also worth mentioning that during the 2016 legislative session, a total of sixteen states, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, proposed legislation regarding the use of credit information in insurance writing decisions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Specifically, what my measure proposes to do is to prohibit any insurer or insurance producer from denying, cancelling or refusing to renew or raising the premium of personal insurance due to an individual’s credit history. In addition, this bill provides for applicable penalties for any insurer or insurance producer that does not comply with this prohibition. According to data obtained from a 2016 Car Insurance & Credit Scores Report commissioned by WalletHub, people with no credit pay an average of 53 percent more for car insurance than people with excellent credit, with some states seeing fluctuations as high as 122 percent. It is because of these findings that several reputable organizations like the National Association of Allstate Agents, Inc., the Consumer Federation of America, and the Center for Economic Justice vehemently oppose the use of credit-based scoring. For these reasons, I ask you to please consider joining me as a co-sponsor of this legislation. |