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Little-Known Report Impacts Insurance Rates

Insurance Providers Use CLUE Report To Determine Risk

POSTED: 12:11 pm CDT May 16, 2007
UPDATED: 10:23 pm CDT May 16, 2007

A local resident found out the hard way about a little-known report that can cause big rates in insurance premiums.

Video: Insurance Rates Affected By Lesser-Known Report

When someone is in a crash, the person at fault expects his or her car insurance premium to increase.

What Jim Deck did not expect is his renter’s insurance to nearly double because of something on a report he had never seen.

"I literally had no clue, pardon the pun, what a CLUE report was, had never heard of one,” he said.

"A CLUE report is a comprehensive loss underwriting exchange,” said LaMonica Barnett of State Farm Insurance.

The report is a history of crash claims that drivers have filed for their car insurance.

The insurance industry has been using CLUE reports for about 15 years, and, if a driver has a bad report, the insurance rate goes up.

"I haven't had tickets or accidents where I've had to file claims, so why should that affect my renter's insurance and almost double it?” Deck said.

Deck's insurance agent told him his renter's insurance rate went up because of his CLUE report. But when he got a copy of it, it was wrong, he said.

"But the major thing that was wrong on there was an accident that my mom had been involved in in 2004 in which State Farm paid out between $12,000 and $13,000 on the claim,” he said.

So how did Deck’s mother's crash end up on his report?

Choice Point is the company that compiled the report. He said they told him it was because they shared the same address.

"But I hadn't lived at that address in over 13 years,” Deck said.

He's now working to have his record corrected.

Residents do have the right to check their CLUE report for any errors.

"It wouldn't be a bad idea, I guess, to check, if you live in an apartment complex and if your driver's license has an apartment address on it, because sometimes that information does follow the address,” Barnett said.

Deck said the whole idea that a driving history affects residents’ renter’s insurance is just weird.

"It's almost mind-boggling how you can tie one to the other when they have no bearing to one another,” he said.

Drivers are entitled to one free copy of their CLUE report per year. Click here to get yours.


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