Property-casualty trade groups have called on New York Gov.Eliot Spitzer to veto a bill that would prohibit using informationthat a consumer provides in searching for a car or home loan todetermine their credit score.

The industry organizations said the bill could distortevaluations.

Assemblyman Adam Bradley, D-White Plains, who introduced thebill, said the legislation was not intended to affect insurers' useof credit scoring as a risk management tool and does not dothat.

Mr. Bradley said he is hopeful but can't predict whether thegovernor will sign the measure. Gov. Spitzer, he said, has alwaysbeen a strong advocate on consumer issues, and this bill supportsconsumers.

"I hope he will sign it, but I can't speak for the governor," heremarked.

He explained the bill's purpose is to keep good consumers frombeing penalized with an adverse score because they shopped aroundfor a lower rate.

"It is an unfair penalty on consumers who are doing what theyshould be doing," said Mr. Bradley.

While some credit reporting companies may observe a 30- to45-day rule on loan inquiries, others do not. In some cases it cantake a consumer longer than the 30 days to shop for a loan, andthat should not be a penalty, he said.

Asked about the opposition to the bill from insurers, Mr.Bradley said he was not surprised by it. Insurers and creditreporting companies seek to use the most conservative measures oncredit scoring to reduce the potential risk to them. But thereality is this credit measure only serves to punish consumers, heargues.

Paul Magaril, Property Casualty Insurers Association of Americaregional manager, said the bill ignores the role that credit scoresplay in assessing insurance risks, and may have the unintendedconsequence of increasing the cost of mortgage and automobileloans.

"Prohibiting the use of such a predictive factor distorts creditscores and makes them less accurate," he said.

Paul Tetrault, regional manager for the National Association ofMutual Insurance Companies, said that "credit-based insurancescores that carriers use commonly count multiple credit inquirieswithin a 30-day period as a single inquiry to account forsituations for which consumers are shopping for best terms."

Mr. Tetrault said the bill was introduced primarily to deal withthe credit scores banks and other financial institutions use whendispensing credit, but would apply to insurance scores as well.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Spitzer said he has not received the billyet.