NEW YORK--The National Conference of Insurance Legislators(NCOIL) Property-Casualty Insurance committee has voted to approvea resolution supporting the state regulation of the use of creditinformation in insurance.

The resolution passed Friday on a voice vote with noopposition.

The resolution responds to two bills under consideration by theU.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 5633 and H.R. 6062, that NCOILsaid would encroach on an area of regulation reserved for thestates.

In the resolution, NCOIL states that it "opposes federallegislation that would restrict a state's lawmaking abilityregarding use of consumer credit information--as such federallegislation would infringe on states' well-established authority tooversee the business of insurance and would disregard legislatures'ability to determine what is best for their individual states."

NCOIL also points to its 2002 Model Act Regarding Use of CreditInformation in Personal Insurance, which "[regulates] the use ofinsurance scoring so that consumers would be afforded certainprotections with respect to the use of their credit data."

Twenty-six states, NCOIL said, have adopted legislation and/orregulation based on the NCOIL model act. Forty-eight states havelaws that regulate the use of credit information for insurancepurposes.

Joe Thesing, director of state affairs for the NationalAssociation of Mutual Insurance Companies, said the resolutionwould "send a message to Congress that they should not pursueefforts to ban this very valuable underwriting tool." Mr. Thesingurged the committee to pass the resolution.

Deirdre Manna, vice president of industry, regulatory, andpolitical affairs for the Property Casualty Insurers Association ofAmerica (PCI), issued a statement supporting the NCOIL action.

"The NCOIL insurance scoring model act, adopted in 2002, was oneof the most positive developments in the insurance scoring debates.State legislators and insurance regulators across the country usedthe NCOIL model as a way to implement reasonable regulation ofinsurance scores.

"The success of this model makes it unnecessary for Congress tointervene with H.R. 5633 and H.R. 6062, which would amend the FairCredit Reporting Act (FCRA) to prohibit the use of consumerinformation in connection with the underwriting or rating ofpersonal lines of insurance."

The NCOIL resolution states that "NCOIL will distribute thisresolution to state and federal leadership, as appropriate, and tothe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) following the 2008 NCOIL SummerMeeting."