How Do Tickets Affect My Car Insurance?

Receiving a ticket or moving violation can be a traumatic experience, especially if it’s your “first speeding ticket”. You may be thinking your insurance is going to go up because you received one ticket. Well there is no need to panic, yet.

Each insurance company rates you differently depending on the amount of tickets you have and the severity of the ticket. Meaning get a minor ticket such as speeding over 10 km is not going to affect your car insurance premiums as much as getting a ticket for driving under the influence. Why?

The reasoning is simple, someone with one minor speeding ticket is likely not to get into an accident as someone who has a serious ticket such as impaired driving. Most standard insurance companies will let their customers have up to three or even four minor tickets before they non-renew their insurance policy and send them off to a non-standard insurance company. However, if you get an impaired charge or another serious conviction you will likely be non-renewed after your first ticket as you are deemed to much of a risk to insure.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most insurance companies can only legally look back up to three years on your motor vehicle report (MVR) which will list all your moving violations. The reason for this is because the MVR only goes back three years. Insurance companies will check your MVR every one to two years to much sure you haven’t received any tickets.

A final note, receiving parking tickets or having your licence suspended due to not paying child support do not count as moving violation tickets. If your insurance company mistakenly rates you for such non-moving violations you may want to give them a call.