Saturday, March 21, 2009

American Family Insurance … Again

Last year I wrote about the annoying survey American Family Insurance spent tons of money on and sent out to policyholders rather than just call customers to see how they were enjoying their service and agent.

Now I’m griping because we got a letter from them saying they “may use a credit-based insurance score based on information contained in [our] credit report(s).”

I know someone who had their insurance rates go UP because they had bad credit. I’m sorry, but I think insurance should cost the same (based on number of tickets, age, etc., of course) for everyone, regardless of how bad or good their credit is. Our credit is great, so I’m not worried about our rates going up.

But maybe I should be. Maybe they raise the rates of people with BAD credit because they are a risk and those with GOOD credit because they are responsible with their money and possibly have more of it. I like to think most people with bad credit are working hard to pay off their debt, so why should they be penalized and charged more for that?

I feel for these people. When I was in my early 20s and had just escaped from an abusive marriage with the clothes on my back, the guy wouldn’t pay his bills, so creditors came after me. Even though I didn’t end up with any of the stuff, I worked hard and paid off the credit cards and even the IRS so they would leave me alone and not mess up MY credit for what HE had done.

Is your insurance company pulling this crap? How can we stop it?

*Follow-up since I wrote this post … they LOWERED our rates by about $40 every 6 months on my husband’s 1994 truck. I want to know who is paying for our lower rates now? Do you think this is fair?