If the use of consumer credit records for underwriting is banned, insurers will need to develop new evaluation techniques to help them assess risks, actuaries were told at a recent industry conference.

“In the past five-to-10 years a number of developments have really put credit under attack,” noted Roosevelt C. Mosley, a principal with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources Inc, speaking at the Oct. 4 Casualty Actuarial Society conference in Boston.

The CAS reported his and others' remarks at the meeting.

Mr. Mosley cited the trend to regulate the use of credit scoring by a number of states, as well as studies out of Washington and Alaska raising concerns regarding the use of credit, as causes for concern. Media attention on credit and public perception are also key factors.

“In terms of public perception of the use of credit for insurance, there is a lack of understanding of the connection between insurance and credit scoring,” he added.

Keith Toney, vice president, ChoicePoint Insurance Analytics, agreed that public perception is playing a growing role in the issue of credit. “It is such a complex thing to understand, and many organizations are now putting themselves forward with an opinion about credit,” he said.

In response, the industry will have to continue to spend a lot of time to better educate the public about the benefits of using credit scoring as a risk-assessment tool, he said.

Mr. Toney noted that roughly 70 bills were introduced in 21 states to regulate the use of credit in 2006. “About half of those (35 in 17 states) were to ban the practice of insurance scoring,” he said.

From the non-legislative perspective, a new development is the ballot issue. For example, in Oregon, credit-scoring is set to become a ballot initiative this November.

“We are watching that issue very closely. Depending on the outcome there, if that were to be successful, I would have to think that model would be copied by other states,” Mr. Toney said.

He explained that insurers would have a hard time finding an alternative to credit scoring that is as accurate a predictor of loss. However, in the instance that credit scoring does go away, insurers would need to make the best use of what they are able to use.

“If you are limited in terms of factors you can use, recalibrate current factors to make the best use of the situation when you cannot use insurance scoring,” he said.

Mr. Mosley advised insurers to identify items that demonstrate the characteristics of responsibility, risk-taking behavior and stability that go into the current insurance scoring model.

Additional variables, such as an individual's payment history, an individual's accident and violation history, and number of years an individual has been insured and employed could be indicators of some of these characteristics, he said.

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