Georgia's incoming insurance commissioner, Keisha Sean Waites, plans to push for a ban on insurers using credit scores and ZIP codes to set premiums, after her upset win in Tuesday's election.

Waites, a Democrat and former state legislator and Atlanta City Council member, defeated Republican incumbent John King in the 3 November general election. She won 54.28% of the vote to King's 45.72% in unofficial returns. It was the only one of this year's four insurance commissioner races to change party.

Waites has pledged to introduce new measures to hold insurers accountable, to bar the use of insureds' ZIP codes and credit scores in setting insurance premiums, to speed up claims payments, and to effectively freeze some auto and homeowners' insurance rates. In an interview with WSB-TV, she said her top priority for her first 100 days in office is banning credit scores and ZIP codes from insurance pricing.

"Those things have nothing to do with calculating your risk as it relates to your insurance premiums," Waites said in the interview, explaining why she believes the two factors should be removed from pricing.

The scale of the credit penalty in Georgia is large. MoneyGeek's analysis found that a Georgia driver with poor credit pays $3,139 a year for full coverage, $1,839 more than the same driver with excellent credit, whose premium is $1,300. The penalty alone is larger than the excellent-credit driver's entire premium.

ZIP code moves premiums less than credit does for most Georgia drivers. MoneyGeek's quotes show the median Georgia ZIP code paying $1,582 a year for full coverage, with the middle 80% of ZIP codes ranging from $1,423 to $2,184, a spread of $761. The extremes are wider: ZIP code 30311 in south-west Atlanta was the most expensive in the state at $3,483 a year, 2.79 times the $1,247 quoted in 31605 in Valdosta, the least expensive.

Waites cannot impose the ban on her own. Most of her agenda needs the Georgia General Assembly to pass legislation, and the bills have already been tried once. Then-state Senator Nabilah Islam Parkes, a Democrat, filed all three ideas as bills in February 2026. Senate Bill 505 would require the commissioner to approve private passenger auto and homeowners rates before insurers use them. Senate Bill 506 would bar auto insurers from using any geographic classification, including ZIP codes, to set rates. Senate Bill 507 would prohibit insurers from using credit information and credit scores in underwriting and rating.

The Senate referred all three bills to committee on 17 February 2026. None received a vote, and all three died when the 2025-2026 session ended. Any version would have to be filed again when the new General Assembly meets in January.

If Georgia did pass a ban, it would become only the fifth state to bar auto insurers from using credit in pricing. Experian reports that four states currently do so: California, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Michigan. Maryland, Oregon and Utah limit how insurers use credit. A ban would shift costs among drivers rather than removing them: insurers would still expect the same claims and would price them through the rating factors left. Drivers with poor credit or in high-cost ZIP codes would likely pay less, while some drivers with excellent credit or in low-cost areas would pay more.

Waites takes office in January, replacing King, whom Governor Brian Kemp appointed in 2019 to finish the term of a former commissioner convicted on fraud and embezzlement charges. King won a full four-year term in 2022. King had not released a statement by Wednesday morning, 4 November.

Georgia is one of 11 states with elected insurance commissioners, but only four commissioner races were on the ballot this year. California, Kansas and Oklahoma also elected commissioners on 3 November. In Oklahoma, Republican Bob Sullivan won the open seat with 59% of the vote. In Kansas, Republican Dan Hawkins beat Democrat Dinah Sykes 49% to 47%. In California, Democrat Jane Kim declared victory over Ben Allen, leading 52.7% to 47.3%.

Waites' rate-freeze pledge covers auto and homeowners policies. On long-term care, the department she takes over allowed only 22% of the rate increases insurers requested, the smallest share of the 46 jurisdictions MoneyGeek ranked, against a median of 65%. Georgia also moved quickly, approving filings in an average of three months.

No one's premium changes on inauguration day. Commissioners review rate filings, enforce claims rules and set regulations within the authority their legislatures give them. In Georgia, a credit or ZIP code ban or a prior-approval requirement would need the General Assembly to pass a bill in 2027. Waites takes office in January able to review rates, but not to take credit scores out of them. That takes a bill, and the last one, Senate Bill 507, never got a committee vote.