The Ever-Increasing Importance of Your Credit Score

When the FICO score was first invented it was meant to just help lenders gage the trust-worthiness of a potential borrower. Since then, the FICO score that is created via your lending and repayment of various types of loans from credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and even no fee same day loans, has a much wider impact on your financial opportunities than ever before. It will determine whether companies will lend to you at all. It can be used by landlords to determine whether they will rent to you. It can determine what rates you get on your insurance premiums. It can also keep you from getting a new job.

Bad Credit Lending

If you have a bad FICO score, you will either be denied credit or be offered credit at higher interest rates than someone with a better score. Lenders will see you as a credit risk and if you want to finance anything, from a car loan to a mortgage, it will cost you more over the life of the loan.

Renting

Landlords and apartment management companies will now routinely ask to pull a credit report before they will rent to new tenants. You can be denied a rental if you have a bad credit score or you may be asked to front the payment several months in advance. If you can’t get a rental with bad credit, it’s going to be even tougher to buy a house. This can mean that the choices you have for living arrangements is sharply curtailed.

Insurance Premiums

It seems unfair that even insurance companies can charge you more for premiums based on your FICO score, but it is a practice that is now in place. If you see a sudden increase in your premium, call and find out what the reason is, but if it’s your FICO score, they’ll blame it on you.

Employers

Cautious and choosy employers want the perfect candidates to fill their positions and that can include a good FICO score. Not every employer will care about your credit history when hiring, but some like banks and financial services have always been more careful about hiring people who are in financial difficulties. They claim that there would be more temptation to embezzle from the company if a person has a low credit score.