Does bad credit make you a bad driver? How about your gender? Marital status?

Insurance companies use those factors to help set auto rates. House Bill 3423 would prohibit an insurer from using any of those three things to determine eligibility, rates or premiums in Oregon.

Lobbyists for insurers argued before the Legislature on Tuesday that those three things are risk factors that correlate with risk and claims history.

“The use of credit history, gender, and marital status as rating factors is not arbitrary — these metrics have been empirically shown to correlate with risk and claims history,” wrote Isis Thornton-Saunders, a lobbyist for the Professional Insurance Agents of Oregon.

We found a study by the Federal Trade Commission in 2007 that supported that claim for credit scores. “The study found that these scores are effective predictors of the claims that consumers will file,” a summary said. “It also determined that, as a group, African-Americans and Hispanics tend to have lower scores than non-Hispanic whites and Asians. Therefore, the use of scores likely leads to African-Americans and Hispanics paying relatively more for automobile insurance than non-Hispanic whites and Asians.”

The point that advocates of the bill make is that it is not an individual’s credit history, gender or marital status that determines how good or bad a driver a person is. A person could be a driver with a pristine record and have terrible credit. Widows can actually pay more for car insurance, which seems particularly cruel.

The thing many people want to know is, of course, what would the changes of H.B. 3423 mean for rates. Lobbyists for the insurance industry say rates would go up and go up for everyone in Oregon. The absence of the availability of these risk factors would mean less certainty in determining rates and rates would have to go up. The changes of the bill might be more just and unfortunately more expensive. Tell your legislator what you think.