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The following might be hard to believe. Surveys tell us that 90% of consumers do not know what their credit score is. It is important to know how your credit score is costing you money, probable in more ways than you think.

You probably already realize that a low credit score makes your purchases more expensive due to higher interest rates. Credit lenders will consider you a higher credit risk. As a result you will have higher interest rates on home purchases, car purchases and on your credit cards. This is considered to be common knowledge. The truth is however, that very few realize how devastating the effects truly are.

Here is a simple example. When you buy a home for $200,000 for 30 years with a fixed rate mortgage at 8 percent (as opposed to 6 percent, due to your credit score), that 2 percent difference is going to cost you over $96,000.

The above is an obvious example. Few people comprehend how your low credit score increases your cost of living on a yearly basis. Besides your home, car and credit cards, a low credit score will increase what you pay for other things as well.

One that you may not be aware of is auto insurance. Auto insurers will use your credit score to underwrite your policy. The same is true of homeowners insurance. Insurance companies see a direct connection between your credit score and increased property claims. Not surprisingly, low credit scores result in higher rates.

This also applies to both health and life insurance. Customers who pay on time and without a lapse in their payments are more profitable. Customers with low credit scores will pay a premium in order to obtain the same insurance.

It may come as a surprise that employers are now doing credit checks on potential employees. Employers will claim that they do this to verify your residence and possibly where you have worked in the past. However, it is safe to assume that they are looking at how you handle your finances as well.

This presents some serious problems. To make matters even worse, the Public Research Interest Group says that as much as 79 percent of all the credit reports contain some errors. It also states that 25 percent of these are serious enough to cause the denial of credit.

When you stop and think about this it is problematic because of the growing impact that a credit report represents in our lives.

George Burns is the co-publisher of Fixing Credit Score which be found at http://fixing-credit-score.blogspot.com, a popular website that provides tips, advice and resources that include How To Fix Your Credit Score.

Sign up for two free gifts: A free ebook, "The Credit Secrets Mini-Book" and a free ecourse, "7 Things You Must Know About Your Credit" at http://www.internet-marketing-dot-com.com/credit_repair/credit_repair_ecourse.html

# posted by ujx @ 2:03 PM