Personal Info That Your Car Insurance Company Knows About

Most of us will concentrate most of our time on getting the best insurance quote. We will study the company that we are getting the car insurance from and make sure that they have a good record with previous customers. We look at their BBB rating and ask people if they have been treated right. We however forget that one of the most important things to provide your car insurance company is full and detailed information about you and your car.

For some reason, people tend to have a liking to try keep their information as private as possible. They like leaving some vital information out in the hope that maybe your insurance quote will be cheaper. This is extremely bad practice. The first and most obvious problem is when it comes time to claim and the insurance company declines your claim just because you have not been “honest” about your risk profile to them. This is a very real scenario as it would be akin to insurance fraud if you do not represent yourself as who you really are to the insurance companies. In a less serious scenario the insurance company may find out the additional risks that you are before the claims and issue you’re a notice to increase your premiums.

Lets discuss what information the insurance companies need from you. The first thing that the insurance companies need to know is everything about your car. Most insurance companies will run a Motor Vehicle Report (MVR). It is the state that provides the MVR but some insurance companies would rather get it from third party vendors like Choice Point. The MVR basically shows how many infractions you have over the reported period and also whose fault it was. Some states like Pennsylvania don’t have fault reporting and a separate report from the police is necessary to determine who is in the wrong. Typically, car insurance companies will obtain reports that span 3 years back. Larger more careful insurance companies will obtain reports up to 5 years back.

In addition to how you have behaved on the road the MVR will also show the status of your drivers license. Valid, Expired or Suspended are the normal results. The information that the insurer will receive from this report will be your social security number, DOB, current address, phone number. It will also show the number of driving licenses you have, what class and also how many times your driver’s license might have been suspended.

Another report that many insurers will normally obtain is the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (C.L.U.E) report to obtain more information from the user. This report is also obtained from the companies like Choice Point. The report basically states what claims you have filled and also what claims have been filed against you. Again this report doesn’t go into who is wrong but if the car insurance company had to settle a claim for you then it would mark you negatively on the report. With this report it will show the personal details of everyone that you have signed up as a secondary driver to your car. This will probably include anyone in your family.

In addition to the above reports, most insurance companies will also request a copy of your credit report. This is simply so the insurance company knows that you have a good credit history and aren’t going to leave your account in the negative with them. Naturally, those that present as a credit risk to the insurance company will either have to pay a higher premium or even not be allowed the car insurance policy. Some insurance agencies will also factor in more than credit risk when looking at your credit report. It is controversial at best but some insurance companies also use the credit score as a measure of an individual’s risk appetite.

Insurance companies will also judge you on where you live and where you store your car. Each city and even suburb has a rating which corresponds to the risk of each area. The rating is based on crime levels, populations levels, mean age and much more. In general large cities will have a higher crime rates would attract a higher premium charge while country town with love crime will attract cheaper quotes.

As you can probably imagine from this, insurance companies are very thorough in their analysis of potential customers. In actual fact, the more the insurance company knows about you, the better. This is because your insurance policy will better reflect the risk that you pose. The insurance company will not have any way to weasel itself out of paying the claim.