Your Car Insurance And Moving Violations.
If you are cited for a moving violation such as reckless driving or speeding, your car insurance costs can dramatically be affected. How is your insurance affected to your auto insurance costs and is there something you can do about it? Take a look at the following points.
What are the consequences? Auto insurance companies employ many different factors to establish the rate to charge for different types of coverage. These are usually tied in with something called “risk.” In other words, the greater risk you are for incurring a loss (making a claim) then they higher the insurer will typically charge.
So what affects the risk factor? How much you drive a day or year, the city you live in, your age and the type of automobile you have can all be used to determine risk. Breaking traffic laws by reckless driving, speeding or other ways is one of the biggest risk factors they look at.
In most states, if you are convicted of breaking a traffic law — such as speeding — it may be counted in a point system assigned to you as a licensed driver in that state. When you go to buy auto insurance, the car insurance company will review your driving record. If you have these points or violations on your record you may be charged a higher rate or even denied coverage. What’s more, your current insurer may do a periodic review and could raise your rates if they discover that you’ve had a violation.
What can you do? You usually have some choices when you receive a moving violation citation. You can pay the fine, fight it in court or you may be able to get it dropped by attending a traffic school.
Paying the ticket will get rid of the fine but you will probably have the points show up onyour driving record which could increase your insurance costs.
If you fight the ticket in court and win, it would be dropped. If you win, no points would be attributed to your driving record. Now if you lose, you’ll still be paying the fine (and any court fees) plus your insurance costs can still go up.
If you don’t want to challenge the ticket in court, you may be able to get it dropped if your state offers a traffic school option. Courses vary from state to state but typically involve a fee and at least a few hours in traffic school. Although the cost of the course could be as high as the fine (not always), you’ll benefit by having the violation dropped from your record upon successful completion. No points on your record means that your insurance company won’t raise your rates. Sometimes there are limitations to how often you can take a traffic course.
If you can’t take the traffic course and your rates increase, it might be a good idea to get some car insurance quotes from different companies. Just shopping around could save you quite a bit because rates vary from company to company. On the Internet, auto insurance online sites are a good place to start.
You may also consider raising your deductibles on comprehensive and collision coverage for awhile to lower your insurance costs.