“In fact, nine other states have passed credit freeze legislation in 2006, and all of them allow insurers to continue to access credit information for underwriting and other legitimate business purposes,” she said.

Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Utah, Kansas and Vermont were the states she listed.

“The trend of exempting insurers from credit freeze legislation recognizes the fact that consumers face little risk of identity theft from insurance purchases,” she said.

Ms. Baldwin said that efforts to persuade the chief sponsor of the bill, Sen. Charles Fuschillo, R.-Freeport, to exempt insurers were fruitless.

The veto effort could be complicated by the fact that the measure received only five “no” votes in the Republican-controlled Senate. “It is hard to get 'no' votes for credit freeze legislation,” she said.

The governor would presumably face the same pressure, but Ms. Baldwin has not given up hope. “It is hard to say what the governor is going to do,” she said.

Under the bill consumers could choose to place a freeze on their credit information.

Ms. Baldwin said PCI is particularly concerned that insurers who are contacted by customers for insurance over the Internet would have to inform them they could not write their business for three days–the time it would take to lift the freeze–and three days later customers would not return to their Web site.