An insurers' trade group said today they plan to meet with New York Gov. George Pataki's office to persuade him not to sign a measure allowing consumers to freeze access to their credit information.

Kristina Baldwin, regional manager for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), based in Albany, said the legislation designed to protect against identity theft is not relevant for insurance.

Pataki spokeswoman Lynn Krogh said the Republican governor has until June 7 to decide on the fate of Senate Bill 6805. “He is still reviewing it and has not yet decided what he is going to do,” she said.

Ms. Baldwin noted that is the only credit freeze legislation passed in the nation this year which does not exempt insurers and said PCI is hoping to convince the governor's staff that the measure should be given a conditional veto until insurers are exempted.

“In fact, nine other states have passed credit freeze legislation in 2006, and all of them allow insurers to continue to access credit information for underwriting and other legitimate business purposes,” she said.

Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Utah, Kansas and Vermont were the states she listed.

“The trend of exempting insurers from credit freeze legislation recognizes the fact that consumers face little risk of identity theft from insurance purchases,” she said.

Ms. Baldwin said that efforts to persuade the chief sponsor of the bill, Sen. Charles Fuschillo, R.-Freeport, to exempt insurers were fruitless.

The veto effort could be complicated by the fact that the measure received only five “no” votes in the Republican-controlled Senate. “It is hard to get 'no' votes for credit freeze legislation,” she said.

The governor would presumably face the same pressure, but Ms. Baldwin has not given up hope. “It is hard to say what the governor is going to do,” she said.

Under the bill consumers could choose to place a freeze on their credit information.

Ms. Baldwin said PCI is particularly concerned that insurers who are contacted by customers for insurance over the Internet would have to inform them they could not write their business for three days–the time it would take to lift the freeze–and three days later customers would not return to their Web site.

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Pataki Urged To Veto Credit Records Bill

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