Have you ever wondered how your homeowners or automobile insurance company comes up with how much to charge you?
They use your CLUE report.
What is a CLUE report?
CLUE actually stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. It’s a report that summarizes a person’s seven year insurance claim history for renters, automobile, umbrella, and homeowners insurance. The information on the report includes the types of claims you have made, the amount paid out by the insurance company, description of the property covered, and who was involved. Even if there was no payout for a claim, it may still be included on your report.
CLUE data is collected from insurers into a database by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Insurance companies use LexisNexis’s CLUE report, along with your credit report, to decide what you will pay for insurance. So the more claims you have made, and the more those claims have cost your insurance company, the more you will be charged for insurance.
Why you should get your CLUE report
Just like your credit report, annually you need to verify that your CLUE report is accurate. What is within your report affects your insurance costs and coverages so you need to check to ensure all the information is accurate.
Example
One year ago I received my 6 month renewal bill for my automobile insurance. Last time this 6 month renewal cost me $1200 and this time the insurance company wanted $1800. I was baffled. Why the jump in price?
I contacted my insurance company to get a copy of the CLUE report they used to write the current quote. I looked through my CLUE report and noticed that an accident I had been in a few months prior was showing as ‘100% At Fault’. The report was wrong. The accident should have been reported as ‘100% Not At Fault’. I contacted my insurance company and they got with LexisNexis to fix how the accident was reported. A few weeks later I received a reimbursement check for $600 reimbursing me for the overstated 6 month auto insurance quote I had paid in full for.
How to get your CLUE report?
You get one free CLUE report annually and the reports are subject to the Federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. So, if there are discrepancies in your report, your insurance company is required to fix the discrepancy and fix the claim they sent in to LexisNexis.
- Online through LexisNexis at: https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request
- By phone through LexisNexis: 1-888-497-0011
- If you recently received a renewal notice, or applied for new insurance, then the insurance company may be able to give you a copy of the CLUE report they used to underwrite your policy quote if you request it. This does not count against your one free annual report.