The Consequences of Poor Credit on Home Insurance Costs

• August 25, 2015

by Tianna Mañón

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The role that credit plays in the cost of home insurance is significant, according to a new study.

The study commissioned by Insurancequotes.com, and completed through Quadrant Information Services, found that credit has a heavy hand on the home insurance an owner secures. Especially in DC.

The cost gap between how much someone with excellent credit pays for home insurance versus someone with fair credit is 61 percent in the nation’s capital, according to the study. The gap grows to 185 percent when comparing the costs of a homeowner with excellent credit and one with poor credit.

Some activists are taking issue with how heavily credit factors in to the costs. Amy Bach of San Francisco-based nonprofit United Policyholders has long maintained that credit scoring primarily hurts low- to moderate-income earners, since they are the ones with typically lower credit scores.

“The damage that leads to many home insurance claims is often random, sudden and accidental — things like break-ins, slip and falls, or weather events,” Bach explained. “There is no way an individual’s credit score has a causal connection to those events.”

The full study can be viewed here.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/difference_in_credit_scores_causes_huge_differences/10281