I think I heard Clark say we should unfreeze our credit when shopping for car insurance, but am not seeing this in the car insurance shopping guide. Internet searches are not revealing a clear answer. Does anyone know?
Lenders use your credit score and credit history as factors to determine what interest rate to offers. See The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau article “How does a lender decide what interest rate to offer me on an auto loan?”
Thank you for this. I hope someone else can still weigh in on whether unfreezing credit is necessary for this. e.g. It might be the insurers use a different credit reporting bureau than the big three or pull the records differently. I guess there also might be some strategy here --i.e. someone with low credit might keep their scores frozen while someone with high credit would want to unfreeze.
There are other credit bureaus - now whether they are relevant to this situation in any meaningful way, I do not know. See: Credit Reporting Agencies: Big 3 & Alternative Bureaus
I have had my credit frozen for years and I shop for new insurance every year just to compare. I have never unfrozen my credit for that. For a new credit card or a new mortgage, yes, but not for insurance.
We just received a Clark Stinks about this on Friday’s podcast. The caller said that we’re wrong about having to unfreeze credit for insurance purposes. We have to do more digging and update our information, if that’s true. Watch here for Clark’s response (time code: 5:55): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMmoIZiXQj8
The rates on my current renewal with State Farm just skyrocketed. I’m wondering if that’s related to my credit being frozen. I recall unfreezing my credit when I first got these policies.
Could be–but rates have been increasing a lot around the country in general too. Mine went up like 40% several months back without any change in my credit freezing.
Ruthe from our team just published an article on this topic: Do I Need To Unfreeze My Credit To Shop for Car Insurance?
Hope this helps!
What really irritates me is that the companies don’t specify, up front, which credit agency they are using. So you have to unfreeze all three.
I had the same issue when applying for a credit card. I had to unfreeze all 3 bureaus and tried again. I am not sure why the CC companys care because being retired, I just lie about my income anyway.
If in fact the insurance companys do want to see credit scores, then I would encourage everyone to have their credit reports frozen and ask for quotes en-mass and not buy. The companys would see what appeared to be massive loss of potential business and maybe change their procedures.
Lying to a lender about your income is called “financial fraud”. 
Insurers will run your credit when you apply. I’ve had to unfreeze mine to shop around every time. Clark has mentioned this before, you can have a perfect driving record but have a low credit score and pay MORE for car insurance than a high credit score with a DUI.
I asked my insurer (State Farm) if they could re-rate my existing policy based on credit score (mine above 800). They said yes, but I’d have to unfreeze my credit files on all three bureaus. I did that almost two months ago and my agents says they are “still working on it”. Then the National Data breach happened and my SS number is in the wind. It’s making me really nervous. If they don’t get it done next week, I may just give up and re-freeze anyway.