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Mercury General, a Los Angeles insurer, on Thursday became the first to enter the New Jersey auto insurance market since 1996. The company will hire as many as 50 agents and plans to offer policies to drivers not renewed by State Farm Indemnity, which stopped selling policies last year because of its shaky finances. Mercury is the sixth-largest insurer in California, with total assets more than $2 billion. In New Jersey, the company will initially offer auto insurance policies to 4,000 drivers that State Farm Indemnity is not renewing each month under a June 2002 Market Stabilization Order. Over the next 14 months, the company hopes to offer its services to 50,000 State Farm policy holders. Eligible drivers will be placed into one of seven tiers, depending on a number of factors, including driving history, the levels of coverage they choose, and a variety of discounts that may apply, including good student, driver education, senior citizen and good credit discounts, which will be offered in New Jersey for the first time. Good credit discounts are used in most states to evaluate driver risk and will be assessed by the Department of Banking and Insurance with Mercury’s entry into the State. According to the Insurance Council of New Jersey (ICNJ), a nonprofit, insurance research, information and advocacy organization, the logic of using credit information with other objective factors like driving history is to accurately estimate the risk presented by a given customer and to determine a fair price for his/her insurance.”All research shows that people who handle money responsibly also tend to handle their driving responsibly,” ICNJ said.Mercury’s arrival in New Jersey comes just two months after Governor James E. McGreevey signed an auto insurance reform package that overhauls the State’s auto insurance system. The reforms impose some of the nation’s toughest penalties for auto insurance fraud, while strengthening consumer protection and cutting down on the number of uninsured drivers on the road. Innovations include stricter categorization of high-risk drivers and a dollar-a-day insurance plan for low-income drivers. It also phases out the “Take All Comers” law that forces companies to insure drivers with bad records.