"Mr. Kabler is a very talented statistician?he was able to provide the technical consulting that the states needed to get the project off the ground."

Mr. McConnell also related that the scope of this multistate research will be much wider compared to the earlier Missouri Insurance Department study, which only examined credit scoring's impact on minority and low-income households on a ZIP code-level aggregate basis.

According to the earlier Missouri study, released in January, urban and rural state residents suffer from the use of credit scoring because in the lowest income areas?often in inner cities and the southern portion of the state?the average credit scores were 12.8 points lower than the wealthiest ZIP code areas.

Mr. McConnell also explained that in the earlier research, "we had companies submit to us ZIP code-level data that was essentially aggregate data." But in the new 10-state study, the Missouri department is suggesting the use of data at the policyholder level?these include not only credit scores but driving records, the model numbers of policyholders' cars, and other information that are in a typical underwriting and rating files.

"This report will also be looking at the actuarial relationship between credit scoring and losses, as well as the economic impact of credit scoring on various groups. This will help us conduct a much more in-depth analysis," he said. "There are about 20 companies involved in the study in every state. Auto and homeowners policies are the subject of the data call."

The deadline for states to turn in the data is Aug. 20, and the Missouri Insurance Department will then analyze these numbers and give the results to participating states and publish a final report by the end of the year.

Currently, there are 10 states participating in the study, down from 13 several weeks ago. The states involved in the project are: Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia.

Among the initial 13 states, Kansas decided to drop out, Mr. McConnell said, because they expressed "confidentiality concerns," whereas Wisconsin withdrew because of their "problems with staff capacity" to handle the project. Michigan withdrew last month after Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Office of Financial and Insurance Services Commissioner Linda Watters proposed a rule to ban the insurers' use of credit scoring altogether.