By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – Your income, your credit score, and whether you own a house.

These factors would not seem to have a bearing on how good a driver you are, but in Illinois, they can be used to set your insurance rates.

Your credit score, says Abe Scarr, director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, is “not something that is helping lower risk on the roads for that driver or for other drivers. It’s time for that to change, and to base rates on how you drive; not who you are.”

Scarr joined Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias in testifying to an Illinois House committee. But State Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore), an insurance agent – while admitting rates have gone up since the pandemic – says the story is more complicated than Scarr and Giannoulias make it sound.

“For every dollar that a property-, casualty- and personal-lines carrier brought in last year,” said Keicher, “it paid out $1.10 in claims and fees and expenses. So we have insurance companies that are bleeding money because of the environment we’re in, that’s caused by parts availability (and) repair times.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].