If a life, health, disability income, critical illness or long-term care insurer rated you up or turned you down, part of the reason may be a file you have never seen: your MIB Consumer File. MIB is a consumer reporting agency serving the insurance industry, its file about you is governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and when that file is wrong, you have the same federal rights you would have against a credit bureau.
What MIB is and who runs it
The CFPB’s consumer reporting company list places MIB in its medical category. MIB collects information about medical conditions and hazardous avocations and reports it, with your authorization, to insurers underwriting individual (not group) life, health, disability income, critical illness and long-term care policies.
MIB manages a contributory database of underwriting information maintained by its member insurance companies. The CFPB lists the company as MIB, Inc. In 2022, New York’s Department of Financial Services told life insurers that MIB had reorganized as MIB, LLC, the name on MIB’s own consumer pages.
MIB is one of several insurance-underwriting files. Milliman IntelliScript, also in the CFPB’s medical category, holds prescription drug purchase history. The CLUE report and other insurance-related reports are in the property and insurance reports directory.
What is in your MIB Consumer File and how insurers use it
In general terms, the file holds information about medical conditions and hazardous avocations that member insurers reported. MIB says it also lists the member companies that reported information or made inquiries about you. Not everyone has one: MIB says a file exists only if you applied for individually underwritten coverage with a member company.
A consumer reporting agency may not furnish a report containing medical information for an insurance transaction unless you affirmatively consent (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(g)(1)(A)), and the FTC tells insurers to get the applicant’s permission before the report issues. MIB says a member company must give you notice before it searches MIB or reports to it.
The insurer cross-checks your application against the file. MIB says carriers cannot make underwriting decisions based on the file without further investigation. That does not take the file out of the decision: in the FTC’s example for insurers, an MIB report leads to further investigation, is still part of the basis for the adverse decision, and triggers an adverse action notice.
Where MIB files go wrong
These are the problems to check for, each tied to a duty the FCRA states directly:
- An entry that is inaccurate or incomplete. MIB offers instructions for correcting information that is inaccurate or incomplete, and the FCRA requires a reinvestigation of any item you dispute on that basis.
- A search or report you never authorized. The FCRA requires your affirmative consent before medical information is furnished for insurance. Check the list of companies that made inquiries against the applications you actually made.
- A correction that never reached the insurer. You can ask that notice of a correction go to anyone who received the file in the past six months (15 U.S.C. § 1681i(d)), and the FTC gives consumers the same instruction.
How to get your MIB Consumer File for free
The CFPB’s listing says MIB will provide one free report every 12 months if it has a file about you and you request it. Request it by phone at 866-692-6901 (the toll-free number MIB’s consumer guide also gives) or online through MIB’s consumer request page.
The FCRA requires a nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency, a category that includes agencies keeping nationwide files relating to medical records or payments (15 U.S.C. § 1681a(x)), to provide your file free once in any 12-month period on request (§ 1681j(a)(1)(A)) and within 15 days of the request (§ 1681j(a)(2)). MIB describes itself as that kind of agency.
An adverse action notice gives you a separate 60-day right to a free copy (§ 1681j(b)), and MIB says it provides an additional free copy after an adverse underwriting decision letter that cites an MIB record. Read every entry exactly as it appears.
How to dispute an MIB entry
If anything is inaccurate or incomplete, dispute it in writing. MIB’s dispute page asks for a signed Request for Reinvestigation Form or a signed letter identifying each disputed item and the specific reason it is inaccurate or incomplete. Mail it to MIB Disclosure Office, 50 Braintree Hill Park, Suite 400, Braintree, MA 02184, the Braintree address the CFPB’s listing also gives for MIB. Include copies, not originals, of supporting records, and keep a copy of everything you send; if the case comes to litigation, those copies are the record.
Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i, MIB must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation free of charge within 30 days, which can run up to 15 more days if you send additional relevant information during that period. Within five business days of receiving your dispute, MIB must notify the member company that reported the information. Any entry found inaccurate or incomplete, or that cannot be verified, must be deleted or modified, and MIB must send you the results in writing.
The member company has its own duty. The CFPB’s listing says the company that provided the incorrect information must correct the error, and under § 1681s-2(b), a company that receives a dispute from the reporting agency must investigate it and modify, delete or block an item that is inaccurate, incomplete or cannot be verified.
If the entry stays, you can file a brief statement of dispute (§ 1681i(b)); MIB’s consumer guide says the statement is attached to your record and goes to future recipients. The credit dispute letter guide applies to specialty bureaus like this one. If an entry is not yours at all, the mixed credit file page explains how someone else’s information ends up on a report.
The adverse action notice your insurer owes you
If an insurer denied you, rated you up, or otherwise changed your coverage for the worse based in whole or in part on your MIB file, it owes you an adverse action notice (15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a)). For insurance, adverse action includes a denial or cancellation, an increase in any charge, and a reduction or other unfavorable change in coverage (§ 1681a(k)(1)(B)(i)). The FTC’s guidance for insurers says the notice is required even if the report played only a small part in the decision.
The notice must name the reporting agency with its address and phone number, state that the agency did not make the decision and cannot give the reasons, and tell you that you can get a free copy within 60 days and dispute anything inaccurate. If you received one, that window is the time to order your file.
When an MIB error becomes a legal claim
If you were denied or rated up over an MIB entry that was not accurate, and a proper dispute did not fix it, the FCRA may give you a claim:
- Accuracy (15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b)). MIB must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the file it reports.
- Reinvestigation (15 U.S.C. § 1681i). MIB must actually reinvestigate a dispute, not simply repeat what it already has.
- The member company’s investigation (15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)). The company that furnished the entry must investigate a dispute forwarded to it.
- Consent (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(g)). Medical information may be furnished for insurance only with your affirmative consent.
For a negligent violation, the FCRA provides actual damages, such as the premium difference, plus attorney’s fees (§ 1681o). For a willful violation, it provides actual damages or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, punitive damages as the court allows, and attorney’s fees (§ 1681n). Suit must be filed by the earlier of two years after you discover the violation or five years after it occurs (§ 1681p).
I handle these cases on contingency. Specialty bureaus outside the big three are still consumer reporting agencies, from LexisNexis to SageStream to this one, and the law reaches all of them.
Have your MIB file reviewed
Send me your MIB Consumer File, any adverse action notice your insurer sent, and whatever MIB sent back after your dispute, and I will tell you whether I see a claim. The FCRA attorney page covers how these cases work. Contact the firm to have your file reviewed.
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This page is about consumer report accuracy. The Kim Law Firm is not affiliated with MIB, LLC (listed by the CFPB as MIB, Inc.), MIB Group, Inc., Milliman IntelliScript, or any insurer, and this page is not a complaint about any of them. It describes how medical-condition and avocation entries can appear on an MIB Consumer File and the rights consumers have when an entry is wrong.