Insurance companies use a service, such a Choicepoint, an Equifax product. These inquiries are coded differently, however, from my experience, they are definitely hard inquiries and do impact scores. The problem is that these services also provide the MVR's and CLUE reports, and the whole setup is sold in a package, with even state law compliance built into the software. Keep complaining - complain to the right people and it will be illegal in every state to use credit for insurance underwriting.
For the most part this is true about the hard and soft inquiries. The time period for several hard inquiries not affecting your score negatively (on a mortgage or car loan) is considered 3-10 days. Time period depends on the CRA. Equifax may say "As long as you file your applications in 4 days, it doesn't matter how many inquiries there are. They count as one inquiry total." Experian has their own rules as well as Transunion. Again, I am unsure of the exact policy of Equifax so don't quote me on the above. I *do* know that several hard inquiries not affecting credit in the 3-7 day time period is the norm. Thirty days seems quite liberal don't you think?
