What Is Your INSURANCE Score?

At Brew City Insurance it is our mission to offer customers a truly exceptional insurance buying experience. We provide our customers with the knowledge to choose the best possible insurance products that fulfill their wants and needs. Our friendly, knowledgeable and professional staff will help inspire, problem-solve, and best of all EDUCATE our customers so they can choose the coverage that best fits at a reasonable price.

A Credit score is used to determine how likely a person is to pay off borrowed money on-time.

An Insurance score is your ranking based on various factors that predict the possibility of a person filing an insurance claim.

Insurance companies have to determine the risk associated with their clients, and they each have their very own complex and thoroughly confusing method of determining your insurance score. They use this score as a factor to determine how much premium to charge each client. The lower the score, the higher the premium that client will have to pay. Simple huh?

The challenge is that YOU have no clear way of knowing exactly how those assessments are made. It is important to understand what an insurance score is, how it is different than a credit score, and how it affects the process of obtaining insurance. This is a simplified explanation of that process.

How is Your Insurance Score Determined?

Your insurance score typically is based on;

1. Your personal claims history and
2. Your overall credit score
3. The area you reside
4. And your motor vehicle record (MVR)

Why do we have insurance scores?

This score directly impacts how much you will pay for insurance.

Secondly, this keeps people from filing a bunch of claims with one company then simply moving to a different insurance company when their rates skyrocket. The new company will know exactly what you did in the past.

The majority of insurance companies report to two claim databases – the Automated Property Loss Underwriting System, or A-PLUS, and the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, or CLUE.

Your past will follow you. Insurance companies have made sure of it.

What is a Good Insurance Score Range? What is a Bad Insurance Score?

This number will range between a low of 200 and a high of 997. Insurance scores that fall into the range of 770 or higher are typically considered to be good. Conversely, a poor insurance score is considered to be any number below 500.

How to Improve Your Insurance Score

There are several ways that you can improve your score – ultimately resulting in your insurance premium amounts being reduced.

1. Improve your credit score.
2. Don't file small claims.
3. Move?
4. Drive SAFE!!

Better credit is a time consuming but very possible process. There are many articles on-line that can help. Insurance is really designed for larger losses. Claiming a $750 damage on a car when you have a $500 deductible is just not smart. Finally, living in a high traffic or high crime area increases your risk of loss. In some cases insurance companies change rates block by block.

Bottom Line

Your insurance score matters a great deal when it comes to the premium that you will be charged for insurance coverage. While a small premium difference may not seem substantial, over time, the difference in dollars can really add up.