PITTSBURGH -- If you want to get behind the wheel of a car in Pennsylvania you have to have car insurance. But Target 11 Investigator Rick Earle discovered that companies are using other factors than just your driving record to determine how much you will pay. It's probably no surprise to you that insurance companies look at your age, driving record, and experience when setting your rates. But Target 11 discovered that some companies are also looking very closely at several other factors that you may not be aware of. Among them: your occupation, education and credit score. "If they actually used income it would be illegal, but they've gone around the back door and used these surrogate factors and are charging people more based on income, said Bob Hunter, of the Consumer Federation of America, who recently conducted a study into insurance rates and poor people. The study called the use of these factors discriminatory. For instance, a 30-year old man with an MBA and no history of accidents who drives 20 miles per day and lives in an affluent St. Louis Missouri neighborhood paid $558.00 per year for car insurance. But when you start changing some important factors, the costs of insurance goes up. The same man with only a high school education paid an additional $71.00. With no job, the costs climbed another $84.00. And if the same man lived in the city instead of the suburbs, the bill went up an addition $347.00 for a grand total of $1,060.00 "We understand why insurance companies try to avoid the poor people, but when the poor people must buy it. We think that discrimination must end, said Hunter. So if more education and better credit will get you cheaper rates, we wanted to know what occupation will save you money on your car insurance? Target 11 discovered that scientist, engineers, teachers and pilots are in the preferred tier. But we also discovered that students, doctors and attorneys tend to have the most accidents. So why do doctors pay less for insurance than say for instance manual labors? Doctors earn more money and file fewer claims. They are more likely to pay for damages out of their own pocket, so in the end they are cheaper to insure. "We do collect information on risk, so the price that you pay for auto insurance is our best estimate of the risk you are going to pose in the future, said Dave Snyder, an attorney for the American Insurance Association. Snyder says insurance companies do not use income but they may use other factors like education, occupation and credit score to determine car insurance rates. Snyder told Earle that the rates are an accurate reflection of the risk based on similar losses. Snyder said these rates are based on data colleged by car insurance companies, and he said auto insurance is the most competitive it's ever been, and more people than ever before are benefitting from these factors and getting better rates. "If you have a good credit score which relates to financial responsibility and how you perform on the road. You get a reward for that and pay less," said Snyder, who also emphasized if you are not happy with your rates shop around. "There are literally hundreds of companies you can go to. You can go to independent agents. You can go to agents who write for one company. You can use 1-800 numbers. You can go to the internet. All of this means you have a lot of people competing for your business and the way they compete is to set their prices as accurately as possible to reflect the risk you are going to pose in the next six months or year. I think most people want their auto insurance prices to reflect the risk they pose for potential claims. Companies use data to try to as effectively as possible match the price to the future risk that the policy holder is going to provide," said Snyder.