Hi there. To obtain an excellent credit rating you need to have a score between 961 and 999 points. Don't obsess over the score though, it is Experians own rating purely for your own reference. When you are actually credit checked lenders will use the report information plus any other details you've given them (age, employment details, salary, marital status etc) to come up with their own score.

It seems that these missed payments with Egg haven't affected your score that much so they can't be that severe. There are two things you can do to dispute the status history of the settled Egg account. Firstly, contact Egg to see what they are willing to do for you (if you don't know the card number, contact Experian and they will provide it for you). If Egg are unhelpful or you don't want to contact them directly, dispute the information through Experian who will raise a query on your behalf. There's no guarantee that Egg will respond to Experian with a result that is in your favour so I suggest contacting them first.

As for the insurance searches you'll be glad to know that they are unseen by every company who searches your report other than Royal and Sun Alliance themselves. This is because the search type is an "unrecorded enquiry" and these search types are for non lending purposes ie insurance quotes, account management etc. They do not affect your score either and it's actually standard practice for insurance companies to search your report, look at your finances and then base a quote on how you manage your accounts. Insurance searches will appear on your report as either Royal and Sun Alliance or Admiral Bell Diamond Elephant.

Hope this helps.

Hiya,

I made the mistake of getting into an awful lot of debt at uni. Since then I have tried my best to pay it off but seem to have just got into worse trouble! At the moment, I am trying to get it all sorted. I would like to be able to apply for a mortgage before the end of the year and hopefully not get rejected for one, which is why I am really focussing on clearing as much debt as possible!

I checked my credit score today with Experian and it was 915 (Good). There were two things I had an issue with on the report.

1/ In 2006, my Egg credit card ran out. Instead of just replacing the card, they closed the account and my debt was transfered across to a new Egg credit card account. This confused me at the time. Now I am noticing that on my credit report it has the first Egg account and the second one. The first one it states as being closed. The problem is that I had not long been graduated and had made a few late payments in the months before it was closed, so those have stayed on the report which is really annoying, where as if Egg hadn't transferred the account then they would have dissapeared by now! Very frustrating. Is there anything I can do about that?

2/ I did a couple of car insurance quotes on line a few months back when my insurance was up for renewal. Now on my credit report it shows that Royal and Sun Alliance did a credit check 3 times! I have no idea why. I can only assume a couple of the smaller companies (e.g. Elephant, Sheila's Wheels etc...) actualy belond to Royal and Sun Alliance and each time I have done a quote it has checked. WIll this effect my credit rating? I am not very happy about it if it does. Not to mention I only requested a quote, I didn't say I wanted the insurance.

Also, what score do you need on Experian for an excellent credit rating? Just curious to know how far off I am.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.