You are driving on the road, and you are in a collision with another vehicle. Your insurer pays out your car insurance accident claim, and you repair the damages on your car. A few months later, you switch insurers, but the claims paid by your previous insurer is used as a yardstick to raise your premium. How did your new insurer find out about your car insurance accident history?
At Action insurance, we are committed to demystifying insurance topics and giving you clarity about insurance working principles. In this blog, we will discuss how insurance companies know your claims history.
What is CLUE?
CLUE stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange and is your car insurance claims history. Consumer reporting agencies (CRA) are companies that keep track of industry data based on information provided by players in that industry. Car insurance accident records are kept by LexisNexis, one of the biggest CRAs in the insurance industry. LexisNexis is not the only agency that manages such databases as there are other lesser-known players such as A-PLUS who manage similar databases. Big and small insurance companies submit reports to them monthly, and insurers consult CLUE before taking on new clients. This helps them know your liability claims history and also allows them to calculate your premium.
The information provided in the CLUE report contains detailed information about customers. This information is known as loss history, and it highlights the entire insurance history of a person even when they switch insurers. Tracking claimants is made easy through this access to information. The information provided lasts seven years before it is expunged.
What Does a CLUE Report Contain?
A CLUE report is useful to insurers because it contains all the relevant information that insurers need to verify your identity and your car insurance accident record. Here is the information that is contained in the database of the CLUE reports.
- Full name
- Date of Birth
- Social Security Number
- Address
- Claims paid by insurers.
- Claims denied by insurers.
- Inquiries made to insurance agents or adjusters.
Insurers look at all of this information before giving you a quote on your premiums. Most insurers will not ask for a CLUE report until they have decided to take you on as a client. These reports also help them adjust their rates based on new information. The only way a CLUE report doesn’t affect you is if you have never owned insurance before. You should note that each time a claim is filed, it ends up in your CLUE report even if you are exonerated, or no ticket is filed for the incident.
Keeping a clean insurance record can be tough, especially because it is almost impossible to move through life without encountering one or two mishaps. At Action Insurance Group, our goal is to make sure you always have the information you need. We can help you find reliable insurance for the right price.
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