Auto & Driving
Insurance Cost by Credit Score: Which States Ban It
Estimates based on Insurify, Insurance.com, and Experian 2025-2026 data.
Most states let insurers use your credit score to set your rate. A handful ban or restrict it entirely. Here is what that means for what you actually pay.
Data sourced from Insurify, Insurance.com, Experian
The national gap, by credit tier
Nationally, excellent credit averages about $1,853 a year for auto insurance, while poor credit averages about $2,602, a gap of roughly $749, about 40% more. The gap is much wider for home insurance: excellent credit averages about $2,274 a year versus poor credit's about $8,315, a gap of roughly $6,041, about 266% more.
The middle tiers, good and fair, are not independently published by the source used here and are shown as a straight-line estimate between the excellent and poor anchors, disclosed as such rather than presented as separately verified figures.
The four states where this does not apply
California and Massachusetts ban credit-based insurance scoring outright, for both auto and home insurance. In those two states, none of the figures above apply to you at all, your credit history simply is not a factor an insurer can use.
Hawaii bans it for auto insurance only, home insurers there can still use credit. Michigan bars insurers from using credit to set auto rates entirely, but for home insurance it only restricts specific practices like non-renewal or cancellation based on credit, rating itself is still allowed there for home policies.
Every other state allows credit-based scoring for both lines, though pending legislation in a few more states could change that, this is one of the faster-moving figures on this site.
A banned state does not mean a lower bill, just one less factor
It is worth being precise about what these bans actually do. They remove credit history as an input to your rate, they do not cap your premium or guarantee it will be lower than someone else's.
Every other underwriting factor, driving record, claims history, coverage level, and location, still fully applies. Someone with poor credit but an otherwise excellent driving record in a banned state may still pay more than someone with excellent credit but a recent at-fault accident elsewhere.
The practical benefit is narrower and more specific: your credit history stops being one more thing working against you.
Frequently asked questions
Which states ban credit-based insurance scoring?
California and Massachusetts ban it outright for both auto and home insurance, insurers in those states cannot use credit to set your rate for either line. Hawaii bans it for auto only, home insurers there can still use it.
Michigan bars insurers from using credit to set auto rates at all, but only restricts how credit can be used for home insurance non-renewal and cancellation decisions, rating itself is not barred there for home.
What's the actual dollar gap between excellent and poor credit for auto insurance?
About $749 a year nationally, roughly 40% more for poor credit ($2,602) than excellent credit ($1,853). Other studies report a wider or narrower gap using different methodologies and score cutoffs, this figure reflects one specific, directly sourced comparison, not a universal number every insurer would quote.
Does living in a credit-score-banned state guarantee a lower rate?
No. It means your credit score specifically cannot be used to set your rate, not that your overall premium will necessarily be lower than someone with excellent credit elsewhere.
Every other rating factor, driving record, age, coverage level, location, still applies fully. The practical effect is that poor credit stops being a penalty in those states, not that rates are capped or discounted.
Is the home insurance credit gap really that much bigger than the auto gap?
Yes, substantially. The gap between poor and excellent credit for home insurance is about $6,041 a year, roughly 266% higher for poor credit, compared to auto insurance's roughly 40% gap.
Insurers have found credit-based scoring to be an even stronger predictor of home insurance claims than auto claims, which is reflected directly in how much more heavily it is weighted.