TULSA, Okla. — Whether you’re shopping for a new ride or just protecting the one you have, your credit score has a significant impact on what you pay for auto insurance, according to a new deep dive study by Bankrateinto how having poor credit can significantly drive up the cost of auto insurance premiums.
“Drivers with poor credit are actually paying 76% more for car insurance than drivers with good credit,” said Shannon Martin.
She is a financial analyst with Bankrate and a former insurance agent.
To put that in dollar terms Martin said, “Drivers in Oklahoma with poor credit are definitely feeling the pinch of higher prices. On average, for full-coverage car insurance, their rate is close to $5,000, while drivers with good credit pay closer to $2,200.”
So, what constitutes a good credit score?
According to Shannon, “From 670 to 740 is considered good. Even if you have a poor credit score, which could be between 300 and 400 points, just moving up to average, around 580, can still have a pretty big impact.”
To improve your score:
1. Pay your all your bills on time.
2. Pay down credit cards: Your credit card utilization accounts for about 30% of your credit score. Paying down your credit as much as you can can really help improve that score over time.
3. Use credit tracking services: TransUnion offers a credit tracking service that allows you to pay some types of bills, like Netflix and Hulu. It then tracks your payment record which can help improve your credit score over time.
4. Martin's first insider tip: “Most companies, not all, base the insurance-based credit score off of the first driver to get the policy—the named insured,” said Shannon. “If you have good credit and your spouse has bad credit, you should call around and get the quotes. This way, your name goes on the policy first. It can help lower the cost of insuring you both.
5. Martin's second insider tip: "As you work to improve your credit score, once you go from like poor to average or average to good, that's when you want to reach out to your insurance carrier and tell them, I've improved my score. Can you rerun my whole policy? Now, some insurance companies can do this as a one-time courtesy, and that'll put you in a different tier and risk pool that'll have a lower rate.
But if they say no, that is when you decide to shop for insurance with another carrier because that means anytime they're accessing your information, they're pulling from your latest credit score that'll automatically set you up for a lower rate going forward."
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