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Insurance Quote Searches on Credit report

Hi

Just wondered if anyone else has noticed anything like this. My car insurance is due in the next week, and as I do every year I use Martin's suggested order of sequence to trawl the insurance comparison websites. This year I did this on the 4th Jan and the 16th Jan. Last week I decided to pay for a £2 Credit report from Experian and I received it today, and was shocked to see that AA and Churchill Insurance had done searches on my Credit report on those 2 days.

When I did the searches on the comparison sites I always ticked the option to pay in full upfront, as I never want to pay in instalments and end up paying extra. So I did not ask for credit. Whats worse is that both AA and Churchill didnt even feature remotely close to the most competitve quotes, and I didn't even blink twice at the quotes returned.

Surely it can't be right for them to do a search on your Credit report just for giving you a quotation?

Has anyone else seen this before?
Thanks
Gizz.

Comments

  • All searches that are performed against you will be recorded by the CRA that the specific company uses.

    Insurers and aggregator sites are able to access different levels of information on you dependent on their search purpose:

    - For quotation they can only access public credit data (electoral roll checks, ccjs, bankruptcies etc) to check risk variables

    - When calculating repayment terms when paying by installments (i.e. quoting for credit) they are able to access full credit data (public data plus financial data)

    In this case AA and Churchill will have performed a credit search on you, but only for public credit data. This will produce a soft footprint, so details of the search will only be visible to you when checking your credit file, and not to any other lenders.
  • This is why you never use your own details nor your correct registration details.

    Mr Joe Bloggs who lives in your postcode but a few door down the road for you is the correct address and you either don't use a registration (though some insurers load for this) or you trawl Autotrader to find your car and use that registration!

    You only use your correct details when you know which company you are going to go with and so forth.

    Isn't this common knowledge in the modern era ?

    Same for all quotes.
  • pendulum
    pendulum Posts: 2,302 Forumite
    Funnily enough I've been checking my Experian credit report today and noticed the same, many Insurance Quotation searches (including from the AA and Churchill so it's obviously standard practice with them), but there's a note on the Experian website that does point out searches for Insurance Quotations do not show to anyone else, they're just there for you to see, thus I understand they don't do any harm at all.
  • pendulum
    pendulum Posts: 2,302 Forumite
    Isn't this common knowledge in the modern era ?

    Same for all quotes.
    What harm does it do then, if noone but you can see the searches?

  • Isn't this common knowledge in the modern era ?

    No.

    Can't see how Joe Public knows this
    Mr Straw described whiplash as "not so much an injury, more a profitable invention of the human imagination—undiagnosable except by third-rate doctors in the pay of the claims management companies or personal injury lawyers"

  • gizz_mo
    gizz_mo Posts: 110 Forumite
    Thanks everyone for your replies. I have to say, I had no idea at all, so have learnt something new on the back of this. I guess no harm done, but initially I was alarmed.
    I suppose if it's only visible to me it's ok.
    Thanks again everyone.
  • This is why you never use your own details nor your correct registration details.

    Mr Joe Bloggs who lives in your postcode but a few door down the road for you is the correct address and you either don't use a registration (though some insurers load for this) or you trawl Autotrader to find your car and use that registration!

    So you are suggesting having credit checks done on your neighbours? I am sure you'll find if you accidentally chose one with a CIFAS protective registration you will suddenly find yourself in a lot of trouble.

    Even if you make up bogus details you then have the issue that your quote is inaccurate as the credit rating is a rating factor and so getting a no trace response from the CRA will result in a different premium than if they get your credit file back.

    As has been said, it is a soft search that is done - saying that when rolling this out to a client Experian were unable to give 100% assurances that it wouldnt impact someone's credit rating, they could only say say it shouldnt.
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