Car Insurance Quotes Affect Credit?

ssc456

Hi guys,

For reasons that are beyond me I have always suffered with bad credit. I now pay for Barclays Credit Manager to keep an eye on my credit score.

Over the last 2 or 3 months my credit rating has moved from 526 up to 576 and now down to 516?

In this time my catalogue balance has gone from £350 spent and £750 available to £130 spent and £750 available. My credit card balance is the same every month I have £200 limit, I use it for fuel throughout the month and pay it off in full at the end of the month.

I am on the electoral role.

I haven't applied for any new credit in this time.

The ONLY thing I have done is browse for insurance quotes using various comparison websites as I am looking at getting a new car in June and I have got around a dozen or so different quotes?

I was under the impression that insurance quotes shouldn't affect your credit score / rating and only applying for a new policy if paying by instalments could affect it?

Any advice?

DCFC79

Credit scores/rating doesn't exist, its a number the CRA's give you, no insurance quotes don't affect your credit history or don't think they do.

fawnsinthegarden

The credit scores you get from credit reference agencies do not relate to your credit worthiness, it's more of an indicator on how appealing your report looks. Think of your credit report as a financial CV, your CV rated from 0-999 (0 rubbish - 999 perfect) your CV may be laid out the best it can be given your history (so a 999) but you may be an engineer when the employer wants a zoo keeper, i.e. your credit history just may not fit what the creditor is looking for.


I wouldn't worry about the insurance quotes so much, your history will have a greater indicator on your credit worthiness than any recent searches.

GingerBob_3

When obtaining insurance quotes from comparison websites start by entering bogus, but realistic, data. You'll possibly need a nearby address - but maybe not. I tested this out with the Google comparison site and got loads of quotes. Only when you're happy with one, or at most two, quotes, start again and put the real data in, and it's maybe better to go direct to the company website to do this, but sometimes the quote can then change.

The_Boss

ssc456 wrote: »

For reasons that are beyond me I have always suffered with bad credit. I now pay for Barclays Credit Manager to keep an eye on my credit score.

Jesus - do yourself a favour and stop paying for it right now. Yes, right now! Others have already said it but those "scores" are not real or even accurate and they're just causing confusion. Have a quick look at others threads and you'll see this comes up every single day.

forgotmyname

As above stop paying for a useless number. Your score will probably increase when you have more money to pay the bills rather than waste it.

If you want a monthly score then ask me. This months score is an apple and a banana.

Do better next month and you can move up to the biscuit range of scores. When you reach chocolate chip status you can goto almost any supermarket and choose 2 packets of biscuits of your choice without fear or being declined.