Georgia Commissioner-Elect Needs Lawmakers to Ban Credit Scores

Keisha Sean Waites, elected Georgia's insurance commissioner on Tuesday 3 November, told WSB-TV on Friday that her first priority for her first 100 days is banning credit scores and ZIP codes from the calculation of insurance risk and premiums. "Those things have nothing to do with calculating your risk as it relates to your insurance premiums," she said. She said she would work with Georgia lawmakers on it.

The Democrat, a former three-term state representative and Atlanta City Council member, beat Republican incumbent John King 54.3% to 45.7%. The Associated Press's unofficial count, carried by Movement Voter Project, put it at 2,258,539 votes to 1,900,888 with 99% counted. King was appointed in 2019 and won a full term in 2022, Insurance Journal reported.

The pledge follows a 7.3% rise in Georgia homeowners premiums in 2025 and a rise of about 40% since 2020, which ranks the state 33rd for growth, according to a LendingTree analysis reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August. In the same interview Waites conceded the commissioner cannot freeze rates. The office can delay or deny increases that arrive without actuarial data to justify them, she said.

Key Takeaways

Georgia insurers may use insurance scores "notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary" under O.C.G.A. 33-24-98, so a commissioner's rule cannot remove them.
Address and ZIP code are already barred as score inputs under 33-24-91, so a ZIP ban would reach territory rating, which 33-9-4 authorizes.
Washington's commissioner banned credit scoring by rule; a Thurston County judge ruled on 29 July 2022 that he exceeded his statutory authority, and he did not appeal.
Georgia's SB 507, which would have repealed 33-24-92 through 33-24-98 and barred proxy variables, was introduced 12 February 2026 and died in committee.

What the code says about insurance scores

Georgia's credit-scoring rules sit in Article 4 of Chapter 24 of Title 33, as codified. Section 33-24-98 opens, "Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, insurers shall be allowed to use insurance scores," in rating and underwriting, subject to the rest of the article. A commissioner's regulation would have to get past that sentence.

Section 33-24-91 sets the conditions. A score may not be built from income, gender, race, address, ZIP code, ethnic group, religion, marital status or nationality. Credit may not be the sole basis for a denial, cancellation, nonrenewal or renewal rate. Credit must be recalculated at least every 36 months. Section 33-24-95 requires every scoring model to be filed with the commissioner as a confidential trade secret, a filing duty with no approval step.

The ZIP code half of the pledge meets a different section. Because 33-24-91 already keeps ZIP code out of the score, a ban on ZIP codes in premium calculation would reach territory rating, which 33-9-4 authorizes. That section bars rates that are excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory. It lets insurers group risks into classifications on grounds including "location or dispersion of hazard." For vehicle insurance it names race, creed, ethnic extraction and most physical disability as the only prohibited rating bases.

The levers the office does hold

Waites's account of the office's powers tracks 33-9-21, which sets a different clock for each line. Mandatory minimum-limits private passenger auto is the only prior-approval line. A rate cannot be used until the commissioner approves it or 45 days pass without disapproval. The commissioner may extend that period by no more than 55 days and must notice any disapproval within 100 days of receipt.

Auto filings above the minimum limits take effect 60 days after filing without approval. That window dates from House Bill 221, signed on 3 May 2023, the Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner said at the time. The release said the law closed a loophole insurers had used to raise rates by as much as 25% in a single filing. King called the preserved speed to market "critical for the industry."

Homeowners and every other line are filed at least 45 days before the effective date. Subsection (e) adds the one hard stop. A filing that raises rates 10% or more within 12 months obliges the commissioner to order an examination of the insurer. Once notified, the insurer may not place the filed rates in effect until the examination has been reviewed and certified. The commissioner may waive it only where the increase is under 25% and the office already has enough information to evaluate it.

Line	Regime	Clock	Commissioner's power
Private passenger auto, mandatory minimum limits	Prior approval	45 days, extendable by up to 55; disapproval within 100 days of receipt	Approve or disapprove before use; insurer carries the burden of persuasion on review
Private passenger auto, above minimum limits or optional coverages	File, effective after 60 days (HB 221, 2023)	60 days after filing	Review before the effective date; no approval required
Homeowners and all other lines	File at least 45 days before effective date	45 days	Mandatory examination of any filing raising rates 10% or more in 12 months; filed rates barred until the examination is certified; waivable only under 25%

Sources: O.C.G.A. 33-9-21 as codified on FindLaw (current to March 2024); Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, HB 221 signing release, 3 May 2023.

Washington's test of a ban by rule

One commissioner has tried to remove credit scoring without a statute. Washington's Mike Kreidler issued an emergency rule on 23 March 2021 barring credit scoring in auto, renters and homeowners rates. Insurer trade groups petitioned the Thurston County Superior Court in April 2021, and by October a judge had invalidated the rule, Insurance Journal reported. The groups said two state statutes expressly authorize the use of credit history.

Kreidler then adopted a rule through ordinary rulemaking on 1 February 2022, effective 4 March and running three years past the end of the state or federal emergency declarations. The office said the rule was rate neutral, so some policyholders saw a one-time increase and others a decrease. Kreidler had asked insurers for data on how the change moved their policyholders' premiums. Twelve companies, 5.2% of the affected market, responded.

Kreidler said drivers with low credit scores paid an average of 80% more than drivers with high scores. The American Property Casualty Insurance Association said the ban meant higher premiums for more than a million low-risk policyholders.

On 29 July 2022 Judge Indu Thomas of the Thurston County Superior Court ruled that the rule had followed the Administrative Procedures Act but that Kreidler had exceeded his statutory authority. "Today's decision confirms that the best place to permanently address this issue is in the legislature," Kreidler said. Insurance Day reported on 31 August 2022 that a final order had issued and that he would not appeal.

In Georgia a rule would also have to clear 33-24-98's notwithstanding clause, and a law signed this year removes any deference a court might have given the commissioner's reading of it. Governor Kemp signed House Bill 1247, the Georgia Bureaucratic Deference Elimination Act, on 12 May 2026 after a 98-70 House vote on 2 April and a 34-18 Senate vote on 3 April, Ballotpedia reported. The Act adds Code Section 15-1-24: a court, or an officer hearing an administrative action, "shall not defer to a state agency's determination or interpretation" of the constitution, statutes or published rules.

The bill that stalled

The legislative route Waites named has been drafted once already. Senate Bill 507, sponsored by Senators Parkes, Orrock, Jones II, Mangham, Anderson and four others, all Democrats, would repeal 33-24-91 and replace it with a bar on any use of a credit report, insurance score or other credit information in underwriting, rating, pricing, surcharges, discounts, cancellation or nonrenewal. It would repeal 33-24-92 through 33-24-98 outright. It adds that insurers "shall not use any variable, algorithm, or model that functions as a proxy for credit information."

The bill was introduced on 12 February 2026 and read and referred in the Senate on 17 February, BillTrack50 shows. It recorded no further action before listing the bill as dead on 2 April 2026.

The proxy clause is where the actuarial work would start. The Actuarial Standards Board's ASOP No. 12, in force since May 2006, calls rates equitable "if differences in rates reflect material differences in expected cost for risk characteristics," and tells the actuary to consider whether applicable law limits the choice of characteristics. Under SB 507 the limit would extend past the credit variable to anything that reproduces its signal. Washington's rule never reached that question, because it fell on authority first.

Waites said she will work with lawmakers on the ban, on giving consumers more recourse against insurers, and on a faster regulatory process to attract more carriers. The General Assembly convenes on the second Monday of January 2027, the month she takes office.

Georgia Commissioner-Elect Needs Lawmakers to Ban Credit Scores

Key Takeaways

What the code says about insurance scores

The levers the office does hold

Washington's test of a ban by rule

The bill that stalled

Further Reading

Related guides

Sources