Where credit information may be used to set car-insurance rates (2026)
Credit-based insurance scoring is permitted in most of the country, banned outright in 3 jurisdictions, and restricted rather than banned in others. The distinction is routinely collapsed.
An outright ban means the rating plan may not use credit information at all. A restriction means it may, subject to conditions — new business only, a cap on the effect, a limit on how old the information may be, or a bar on penalising the absence of a credit history. Those are materially different rules and the states that apply them are usually listed together with the states that ban credit, which is wrong.
One large state is the clearest case. It bans the consumer credit score of the familiar three-digit kind, and separately permits a credit-derived insurance score by statute. It is a restriction state, and every list that files it beside the outright bans misdescribes its law.
One state’s ban works by a different mechanism again: rather than prohibiting credit by name, its law sets a closed list of the factors a rating plan may use, and credit is absent from it. The effect is a ban, but the legal route is omission rather than prohibition, which matters for how the rule can change.
| Jurisdiction | Credit | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | No restriction found | — |
| Alaska | No restriction found | — |
| Arizona | No restriction found | — |
| Arkansas | No restriction found | — |
| California | Banned Banned by omission — the optional-factor list in 10 CCR §2632.5(d) is closed at 15 items, a materially different mechanism from an enumerated ban. | Cal. Ins. Code §1861.02; 10 CCR §2632.5(d) |
| Colorado | No restriction found | — |
| Connecticut | No restriction found | — |
| Delaware | No restriction found | — |
| District of Columbia | No restriction found | — |
| Florida | No restriction found | — |
| Georgia | No restriction found | — |
| Hawaii | Banned | Haw. Rev. Stat. §431:10C-207 |
| Idaho | No restriction found | — |
| Illinois | No restriction found | — |
| Indiana | No restriction found | — |
| Iowa | No restriction found | — |
| Kansas | No restriction found | — |
| Kentucky | No restriction found | — |
| Louisiana | No restriction found | — |
| Maine | No restriction found | — |
| Maryland | Restricted New business only, capped at ±40%, no factor older than five years, and the absence of credit history cannot be used. | Md. Ins. §27-501(e-2) |
| Massachusetts | Banned Prohibited from using credit information from consumer reporting agencies for either underwriting or rating. | MA Division of Insurance |
| Michigan | Restricted Michigan bans the FICO-type 300–850 credit score but expressly permits a credit-derived insurance score. It is a restriction state, not a ban state — publishing it beside California and Hawaii is wrong. | Mich. Comp. Laws §500.2162; §500.2151(f); §500.2153 |
| Minnesota | No restriction found | — |
| Mississippi | No restriction found | — |
| Missouri | No restriction found | — |
| Montana | No restriction found | — |
| Nebraska | No restriction found | — |
| Nevada | No restriction found | — |
| New Hampshire | No restriction found | — |
| New Jersey | No restriction found | — |
| New Mexico | No restriction found | — |
| New York | No restriction found | — |
| North Carolina | No restriction found | — |
| North Dakota | No restriction found | — |
| Ohio | No restriction found | — |
| Oklahoma | No restriction found | — |
| Oregon | No restriction found | — |
| Pennsylvania | No restriction found | — |
| Rhode Island | No restriction found | — |
| South Carolina | No restriction found | — |
| South Dakota | No restriction found | — |
| Tennessee | No restriction found | — |
| Texas | No restriction found | — |
| Utah | No restriction found | — |
| Vermont | No restriction found | — |
| Virginia | No restriction found | — |
| Washington | No restriction found | — |
| West Virginia | No restriction found | — |
| Wisconsin | No restriction found | — |
| Wyoming | No restriction found | — |
Source of record: each jurisdiction’s own statute text, corroborated against its insurance department or motor-vehicle agency. 45 jurisdictions carry values confirmed against primary text; the rest show no figure until the primary text is read.
Other rules across every jurisdiction
Questions
- Is an insurance score the same as a credit score?
- No. An insurance score is derived from credit-report data but built to predict claims rather than default, and at least one state bans the consumer credit score while expressly permitting the insurance score.
Statutory records last verified against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Every cell in the table above is read from a committed record with its own citation; nothing here is copied from a secondary comparison.