NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR SIGNS CREDIT LEGISLATION:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) signed into law SB 560, the Personal Insurance Credit Information Act, according to the American Insurance Association. The bill was passed by the legislature on March 19. SB 560 will provide New Mexico with some of the strongest consumer safeguards in the country that go beyond similar laws adopted in other states and are based on recommendations from the New Mexico Credit Scoring Task Force, a coalition of consumer and business groups established by the New Mexico Insurance Division. These safeguards include the following: insurance companies cannot deny, cancel or fail to renew coverage, or base a consumer’s placement on the basis of credit information or an insurance score without consideration of other underwriting factors permitted by state law; insurance companies cannot consider an absence of credit information or an inability to determine credit information, except under certain circumstances; and insurance companies must take into consideration “extraordinary life circumstances,” such as certain medical conditions, illness, injury or disease, divorce, the death of a spouse, child, or parent, involuntary loss of employment for more than three consecutive months, identity theft, a loss that makes a home uninhabitable, and other circumstances prescribed by the superintendent of the New Mexico Insurance Division. The new law becomes effective on Jan. 1, 2006.