I feel like a phish

In the mail today was a letter from my insurance agent. He wants my social security number and date of birth so he can obtain my credit score. If it’s high enough I will receive a discount on our homeowner insurance. It smells phishy. Since I don’t use credit to pay the insurance premium, I’m trying to understand why a person with a higher credit score would be a better insurance risk than someone with a lower score. All I can come up with is that the insurance company wants to market my name