NU Online News Service, Dec. 7, 2:10 p.m. EST

SAN FRANCISCO–Consumer advocates again criticized the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for dragging its feet on credit scoring while attending quickly to issues of concern to the insurance industry.

At the Consumer Liaison Meeting held during the NAIC Winter National Meeting here, Birny Birnbaum, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based Center for Economic Justice, pointed to the recession and the subprime crisis and said, "If there was ever a time consumers needed some relief, this is it."

Instead, he noted, there has been "basically no action," or at least "nothing substantive" to date from the NAIC.

Consumer representatives made similar complaints last month before and during an NAIC Property & Casualty Committee conference call.

In his statement at the Consumer Liaison Meeting, Mr. Birnbaum said the NAIC Property & Casualty Committee continued the charge of looking into credit scoring into 2010 and called for a report to be issued by next November.

By comparison, he said the NAIC had acted quickly to deal with capital surplus and relief issues that concerned insurers. Mr. Birnbaum said the NAIC response on the two issues shows a "sharp contrast."

Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who was presented with the Consumer Representative Award for Excellence in Consumer Advocacy earlier during the Consumer Liaison Meeting, said he is pushing for a permanent moratorium on insurers' use of consumer credit records, and questioned whether it would be more effective for consumer advocates to push the issue state by state rather than at the NAIC. "Some states will take up the challenge," he said.

Mr. Birnbaum, who had criticized the NAIC's response to credit-based insurance scoring last month in a conference call, agreed that going state to state might be "better use of my time."

Last month, in an interview with NU Online, Illinois Insurance Director Michael McRaith, chair of the Property & Casualty Committee, defended the NAIC's schedule on credit scoring, stating, "Our job is to dispense with the rhetoric on both sides" from both insurers and consumer groups, and to understand "in a detailed, nuanced sense" how insurance scores affect consumers today.

Insurers have defended credit scoring as something that provides fair rates for good drivers, while critics say the process unfairly impacts low income and minority consumers and persons with impacts from major medical emergencies.

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