WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — At a time when homeowners are installing new roofs and paying for impact windows, many are now finding out their credit report is also determining what they pay for insurance.
"They are raising my premium again; this time they are raising because of a LexisNexis rating in my credit report," said a homeowner named Todd in Palm Beach County in an email to WPTV.
WATCH BELOW: Credit scores linked to rising Florida insurance premiums
WPTV was first alerted to this by a Delray Beach driver in July, who told me how a long, detailed credit and data report was affecting a premium quote.
Robert Norberg of Arden Insurance in Lantana tells me the information is used to try and determine the risk of each policyholder and set rates — either higher or lower.
"Nowadays the data companies which include the credit bureau have all kinds of information on you," says Robert Norberg of Arden Insurance in Lantana. "They can pull your credit score based on the type of underwriting you’re doing, auto or property or whatever, and it will have a lot of information, more so than it used to."
Norberg said different insurance companies have different ways of interpreting the data in the reports, but most all use it to assess the risk of each policyholder.
This is a developing story that I plan to try and look into further.