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What Is an Insurance Score, and What Affects It?
If a renewal, a quote, or a letter just told you that part of your price came from your credit, you probably felt judged by a number you have never seen. It is your information, and we know where to look. Here is what the number is, what Texas keeps out of it, how to fix what is wrong, and the fresh look you can ask for once a year.
The answer
No one is pulling your credit the way a lender does. A carrier orders a credit-based insurance score, a different number built from parts of your credit report, through a soft inquiry that leaves your credit score alone. It is one line of your price, next to your claims, your driving, the house, and how long you have been with the company. Texas law keeps certain things out of it, makes the carrier tell you why in writing, and since January 1, 2026, lets you ask for a fresh score at renewal once in any twelve month period. It is a photo of one day. It is not the story of your insurance journey.
Are you checking my credit?
A lender runs a hard pull because you are asking to borrow. A carrier orders a score because it is pricing a promise, and car insurance quotes will not affect your credit score. The Texas Department of Insurance says most insurance companies use your credit history to help them decide whether to sell you insurance and how much it will cost, and Texas law says exactly what they may and may not do with it. A lender asks whether you will pay it back. A carrier asks how a loss would land.
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Your credit score
- Who orders it
- A lender, when you ask to borrow
- What it predicts
- Whether you will repay the loan
- The lookup
- A hard inquiry that can nick your score
- What you see
- The number, any time you want it
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Your insurance score
- Who orders it
- A carrier, when it quotes or renews you
- What it predicts
- How likely a household is to have an insurance loss
- The lookup
- A soft inquiry that leaves your credit score alone
- What you see
- The reasons in writing, and the report behind them
A perfect 800 can sit next to an ordinary insurance score, because the two numbers ask the same report different questions. Tenure counts too. Carriers weigh how long you have stayed, which is one more reason we build policies to be kept.
What is in the photo
The recipe is public in broad strokes. FICO, one of the companies that builds the score, says it comes from statistical analysis of credit report information and predicts the relative likelihood of an insurance loss, and the NAIC publishes the five parts and their weights.
What a credit-based insurance score weighs
Next to the score sits the rest of the file.
The score is the part you cannot see, which is why it feels like the whole price. It is one line of it.
What Texas crops out
Chapter 559 of the Texas Insurance Code is the rule book, and it draws lines a carrier cannot cross.
A Texas carrier cannot
- Turn you down, cancel you, or nonrenew you on credit alone.
- Count a medical bill that went to collections.
- Count a credit check you did not ask for, or one tied to an insurance quote.
- Count your mortgage or car loan shopping inside thirty days as more than one inquiry.
- Hold it against you that you have no credit card.
- Hide behind the words credit score. The letter has to name up to four real reasons.
Texas does let a carrier say no when the whole file says no, with the score as one part of it. Here is the honest why, in my words. A carrier is pricing how a loss would land, and when money is tight a 5,000 dollar windshield and a 370,000 dollar water loss are both impossible checks. That is all the score ever says.
Two people in one photo
The strangest files I see belong to families. A father and a son with the same name, the same address, a driver's license that reads nearly the same, sometimes years on the same policy. Line two lives up that closely and accounts from one file land in the other. The son's first quote carries the father's truck. Nobody did anything wrong. The file did.
The fix is unglamorous. Use your full legal name and your suffix, Jr., III, IV, every time, which is exactly what Experian asks for. If you are already mixed, dispute what is not yours with the bureau that shows it and ask it to separate the files for good. We have helped untangle a few of these, and it is worth the phone call.
Who keeps the file, and what they owe you.
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The three credit bureaus
- Who
- Equifax, Experian, TransUnion
- What they keep
- The credit report the score is built from
- Free copy
- Every week at AnnualCreditReport.com, or 1-877-322-8228
- After a letter
- Another free copy within 60 days
- Do this
- Dispute what is not yours, in writing, with the bureau that shows it
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LexisNexis Risk Solutions
- Who
- The company behind many insurance scores and the C.L.U.E. claims database
- What they keep
- A consumer disclosure of what it holds on you, and seven years of claims history
- Free copy
- Once every twelve months at consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com, or 1-888-497-0011. C.L.U.E. at 866-312-8076
- After a letter
- Call 1-800-456-6004 with the letter in hand
- Do this
- Read it for claims and addresses that were never yours
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The score builders
- Who
- FICO and LexisNexis, among others
- What they keep
- The model. Your accounts live at the bureaus
- Free copy
- The reasons, in the carrier's letter, within 30 days
- After a letter
- Up to four of them, by Texas law
- Do this
- Fix the report at the source and the score follows
Fix the photo, step by step
It is your information, and you are allowed to see it. When the Federal Trade Commission checked, one in five consumers had an error on at least one of their three credit reports, and one in twenty had an error that could mean paying more, with auto loans and insurance named first.
- 01
Free
Pull every file
Free every week at AnnualCreditReport.com, the only site authorized to fill the order. Free once a year from LexisNexis. Free again within 60 days of any letter that says credit played a part.
- 02
Free
Circle what is not yours
An account you never opened. An address you never lived at. Your father's truck. A claim on a house you never owned.
- 03
Free
Dispute it in writing
With the bureau or with LexisNexis, whichever one shows it. Federal law makes them investigate and answer you. Keep the letter that comes back.
- 04
30 days by law
Send the fix to the carrier
Texas gives the carrier 30 days to review and re-rate the policy, and if you overpaid it refunds the difference, back as far as twelve months. Once it lands, we recheck your quotes and your score at renewal, or in six months, so you know when it is worth moving.
If a Texas carrier charges you more, declines you, or nonrenews you because of anything in a credit report, it owes you a letter within 30 days, and Section 559.054 says what has to be in it.
Your letter must
- Explain the action and name up to four of the main reasons.
- Give the reporting agency's name and phone number.
- Say that the agency did not make the decision.
- Tell you a free copy of your report is yours within 60 days, and that you can dispute it.
- On a policy renewed since January 1, 2026, tell you that you can ask to be re-rated on a current score.
If your letter says credit score and nothing else, it is not finished, and you are allowed to ask for the rest.
The day the photo was taken
A client came to us to reshop home and auto right after a divorce. Accounts were closing and opening, assets were moving, and the numbers that season were not good. Two or three years later, with life settled, they were back near where they had been. The carrier never knew there was a divorce. It only saw change.
If that is your season, Texas wrote you a door. Section 559.103 names five events. Ask in writing, bring reasonable proof, and the carrier has to either set aside the credit that event touched or score you as neutral. The request is yours to make, in your own words. Our part comes after. We recheck your quotes and your score at renewal, or in six months, so the better photo gets used.
The five events Texas names
- A catastrophic illness or injury
- The death of a spouse, child, or parent
- Temporary job loss
- Divorce
- Identity theft
Your insurance score is a picture of your life as it was and the things that were happening in it. In no way, shape, or form is it a judgment of where you are as a human being. Things change. Houses change. Seasons end. The photo can be retaken.
Ask for a new photo
Since January 1, 2026, the fresh look is Texas law. On a policy renewed on or after that date, you or your agent can ask the carrier to re-underwrite and re-rate it on a current credit report or score, once in any twelve month period, and the carrier has to do it. On its own, the carrier has to refresh your credit at least every 36 months and adjust the premium, which the Texas Department of Insurance summarized for carriers in its 2025 bulletin. The main exception is a policy already in the carrier's best priced tier. Once in any twelve months, you can ask for a fresh look, and the carrier has to give it.
A fresh look moves the price in whichever direction the new photo points, so we read the file first and ask when the picture is better than the one on record. Some carriers made this easy long before the law. Some still make you ask twice. We ask. And if you fixed the file yourself, tell us, and we recheck your quotes and your score at renewal, or in six months, so your work on it gets used.
- Question one
Which four reasons drove this?
The reasons are where the fixable errors hide.
- Good answer
- Named reasons, with the agency's phone number next to them.
- Warning sign
- The words credit score, and nothing else.
- Question two
Will you re-rate me on a current score?
Ask at renewal, through your agent if you would rather not make the call.
- Good answer
- Yes, once in any twelve month period, and here is how to ask.
- Warning sign
- A flat no, with no exception named.
- Question three
Does my season count as an extraordinary event?
Illness, a death in the family, a job loss, a divorce, identity theft.
- Good answer
- A person who names the five events and says to put it in writing.
- Warning sign
- A shrug.
Before you take the photo to heart
It is a photo of one day. It is not the story of your insurance journey.
Not every carrier reads the score the same way. Some love a certain score. Some are built for people whose story is still moving, and they make the fresh look easy. That is the point of a broker. We are not tied to one company's opinion of your season. People call us every year, clients and not yet clients, just to hear they are in a good place. That is what an advisor is for. If the day comes that we get to work together, everybody wins.
Charles McDade, LUTCF
Questions readers ask
Does getting an insurance quote hurt my credit score?
No. A quote is a soft inquiry, and the number the carrier orders is a credit-based insurance score, a different number from the one a lender uses. Your credit score stays where it was.
Can a Texas insurance company turn me down because of my credit?
Not on credit alone. Texas Insurance Code Section 559.052 bars a carrier from denying, canceling, or nonrenewing a personal policy based solely on credit information. It can weigh credit with the rest of your file, your claims, your driving, the house, when it decides whether to write you and what to charge.
How do I see what the carrier saw?
Pull your credit reports free at AnnualCreditReport.com. Request your LexisNexis consumer disclosure, including your C.L.U.E. claims history, free once every twelve months. And read the letter, because if credit cost you anything, Texas requires the carrier to name up to four reasons and tell you where to get the report.
Can I ask my insurance company to rerun my insurance score?
Yes. On a policy renewed on or after January 1, 2026, Texas law lets you or your agent request a re-rate on a current credit report or score at renewal, once in any twelve month period, and the carrier has to do it. Carriers must also refresh credit at least every 36 months. The price can move either way, so look at the file first.
Sources worth opening before you decide
- Credit scoring and insurance, Texas Department of Insurance, updated January 26, 2024
- Home insurance guide, Texas Department of Insurance, updated June 1, 2026
- Texas Insurance Code Chapter 559, Use of Credit Information, Sections 559.052, 559.054, 559.055, 559.058, 559.101, and 559.103
- Senate Bill 1644, enrolled text, 89th Texas Legislature, effective September 1, 2025
- Commissioner's Bulletin B-0012-25, Texas Department of Insurance, 2025
- Credit-based insurance scores aren't the same as a credit score, National Association of Insurance Commissioners, July 22, 2020
- FICO Insurance Scores, FICO
- Do car insurance quotes affect your credit score?, Experian, March 19, 2025
- How can I separate the credit reports of a father and son?, Experian, July 24, 2022
- Free credit reports, Federal Trade Commission
- FTC credit report accuracy study, Federal Trade Commission, February 11, 2013
- LexisNexis consumer portal, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
The purpose is to help the reader ask better questions before claim time.
See what is moving your price
Your price has reasons. You are allowed to know them.
Send us the letter, the renewal, or the quote you are holding. A licensed Texas agent reads the reasons with you, shows you how to pull every file you are entitled to, asks the carrier for a fresh look when the photo is better than the one on record, and rechecks your quotes and your score at renewal, or in six months, so you know when to move. If the price is fair, we say so, client or not. We translate the insurance contract before claim time.
The audit is free. The decision is yours. No broker fees for personal lines clients.