The credit bureau a lender or insurer uses can materially affect the credit picture they see.

Recent research analyzing VantageScore 4.0 scores across approximately 245 million consumers found meaningful differences in scores across the three major credit bureaus. For insurers, those differences raise important questions about how bureau selection can influence risk classification, pricing, and underwriting accuracy.

In this article, DMS Senior Analytics Consultant Michael Sogomonian examines what the mortgage industry’s ongoing bureau debate can teach insurance underwriters about the impact of underlying credit data on decisioning.  The article looks beyond the mortgage discussion itself to consider a broader question: how much confidence can insurers place in a risk classification when the underlying credit data may vary by source?