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Driving without insurance is like driving a tank down main street. Is it possible? Yes. Is it legal? Absolutely not.
Depending on where you live, the crime of driving without insurance might be called something different. Most commonly, the ticket would be for an “uninsured motorist” violation. You can be ticketed for this if you’re operating any motor vehicle, including a motorcycle, in a state with financial responsibility laws.
Financial responsibility laws are laws that require you to have automobile insurance with a sufficient level of coverage in order to legally drive. Which states have them? Let’s get into that now.
Do You Have to Have Insurance To Drive?
Every single state in the country has some kind of financial responsibility law. That means all 50 states have outlawed driving without insurance. No matter where you are within the United States, you have to have insurance to drive.
Of course, simply having insurance is not good enough. You have to have a sufficient level of insurance. What the government considers to be a sufficient level of insurance often varies from state to state. It also varies from accident to accident. That is, the law often requires you to have varying levels of coverage for different kinds of accidents and different kinds of injuries.
In New York, having sufficient financial responsibility means having insurance coverage that satisfies the following three conditions:
- $25,000 or more in the case of an accident resulting in bodily injury to one person.
- $50,000 or more in the case of an accident resulting in injury to all persons.
- $10,000 or more in the case of an accident resulting only in property damage.
Automobile insurance providers will rarely, if ever, offer car insurance that doesn’t meet the local government’s standards. When they say “minimum insurance coverage,” they often mean the minimum required to be able to drive legally. In those cases, you may only be required to pay for the bare minimum to satisfy the sufficiency clause of your state’s financial responsibility laws.
These laws are set at the state level and change from state to state. If you are a commuter who lives in one state and travels to another for work, be sure to read our articles on laws in those other states before making your travel arrangements.
The Consequences of Driving Without Insurance
Driving without insurance is illegal. As with all illegal things, there come penalties. These penalties can vary from mild fines and a suspended license to the permanent revocation of your license and months or even years in prison.
The severity of the penalties for driving without insurance depend on the circumstances surrounding your conviction, such as how clean your driving record is. Drivers with fewer violations on their record are often treated with greater leniency in the eyes of law enforcement. Drivers who have been convicted of serious violations in the past, however, will quite likely face maximum penalties.
You Can Have To Pay Fines
Fines are also called civil penalties, which means they can be assigned to any civil violation, like most traffic tickets. Fines for driving without insurance vary from state to state. Here are three examples of how high those fines can be:
- Florida: Up to $500.
- Georgia: $1,000.
- New York: $1,500.
In many states, you will even have to pay civil penalties in addition to the cost of the fine. In New York, for example, you’ll also have to pay a traffic ticket surcharge, which could be either $88 or $93. For severe criminal violations, additional fines and fees may apply as well.
The Government Can Suspend or Revoke Your License
An uninsured motorist conviction almost always results in the indefinite suspension of your driver license. That is, you will never be allowed to drive again unless you provide proof of insurance coverage sufficient to satisfy your state’s financial responsibility laws.
An indefinite suspension might seem permanent, but it is not. The word “indefinite” here means that you will not get your license back until after you’ve satisfied the court’s mandates. In the case of uninsured motorist conviction, that mandate is almost always to purchase and provide proof of sufficient car insurance coverage.
Once you’ve done so, you can pay any relevant suspension lift fee, jump through whatever local hoops your government has set up, and eventually get your license back.
The Government Can Impound Your Vehicle
If you were involved in an accident, the government can impound your vehicle and hold it until you provide proof of insurance that satisfies the state’s financial responsibility laws. The government can also impose additional requirements, such as paying the balance of the fines and other civil penalties in full.
Unfortunately, just because the government releases your vehicle to you doesn’t mean that the impound lot will do the same. You may be held liable for additional costs payable to the business that impounded your vehicle. In some places, this works similarly to if you had had your vehicle towed.
You Can Face Jail Time
Many states include the possibility of jail time in their financial responsibility laws. That is to say, if you are convicted of an uninsured motorist violation, you will quite likely be facing time in jail.
For example, New York can imprison you for up to 15 days. That might not seem like a long time, but it is plenty enough time to lose your job, fall behind on bills, and ruin many great things in your life. In Georgia, it’s even worse. Judges can send you to jail for up to a full year.
Needless to say at this point, do not drive without insurance. If you need to drive to work, call a friend, carpool with somebody from work, or buy a bike. The cost of Ubering twice a day is far less than the cost of a conviction for driving without insurance.
Will My Insurance Rates Increase After Driving Without Insurance?
This might sound like an ironic question. You might be thinking, “How could my insurance rates increase if I don’t have insurance?” The answer is, just because you don’t have insurance now doesn’t you mean you won’t in the future. And, when you do finally get insurance, your rates can be much more expensive.
Car insurance companies tend to conduct comprehensive investigations of the people whom they intend to insure. These investigations include a deep dive into your driving record. States like New York only let the investigators see the last four years of your record, but that’s plenty of time for an uninsured motorist conviction to cause you problems with new insurance providers.
On average, you can expect to pay 10% more car insurance after a conviction for driving without insurance. If the reason you didn’t have insurance before was because you thought you wouldn’t be able to afford it, your conviction will result in you having to pay even higher prices in the future.
Let’s say you want the average insurance policy in New York. That will cost you $1,688, according the The Zebra 2019 State of Auto Insurance Report. For four years, the maximum time that insurance investigators can see, you will have to pay an additional 10% in premiums. 10% of $1,688 is $168.80. Multiply that by four and you get your total additional cost: $675.20.
Getting Into an Accident Without Insurance
If you get into an accident without insurance, you are in serious trouble. At the best, you will be responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket payments to the other party if they decide to sue you. At the worst, you can be arrested on the spot and take to the station for processing.
Sometimes, uninsured motorists will flee the scene of an accident in the hopes that they will be able to outrun the consequences of being caught driving without insurance. This is a felony in many states and is punishable by far greater penalties. Do not make the same mistake as those other foolish drivers. This is a hit and run.
For more information on leaving the scene of an accident, read our article on the subject.
What Type of Offense Is Driving Without Insurance?
There are three types of offenses. In order from least to most severe, they are as follows: infraction, misdemeanor, felony. Depending on where you live, driving without insurance can fall into either of these three categories.
Traffic infractions are the lowest level of traffic offenses. Infractions are purely civil and cannot result in jail time. Almost no states’ financial responsibility laws treat driving without insurance as a traffic infraction. Rather, most states treat this as a misdemeanor.
Misdemeanors are the middle level of criminality. These are officially criminal offenses and thus can leave you with a criminal record. Unlike driving records, criminal records are public record for most people above the age of 18. The majority of convictions for driving without insurance are misdemeanor convictions.
Plea bargaining occasionally helps whittle a misdemeanor uninsured motorist violation down a non-criminal infraction. However, this is not always the case and is oftentimes not even an option.
As of 2020, there are no states that consider driving without insurance a felony. However, the law is constantly changing. It is entirely possible that, like seat belt laws, the law will become more strict and more penalizing.
What If I Don’t Have Proof of Insurance on Me When I Get Pulled Over?
You should carry proof of sufficient financial responsibility on you or in your vehicle at all times. If you’re caught without it, you could be in trouble. How much trouble depends on a few things.
If you don’t have proof of insurance on you because you don’t have insurance at all, you can be charged with driving without insurance, which means steep fines and potential jail time.
If you don’t have proof of insurance on you because you left your wallet in your other pants, things are a little bit different. Start by telling the police officer that you do have insurance but simply do not have proof on you. They may be able to run your name through their system and confirm your story.
In that case, you could be ticketed for failing to provide proof of insurance. This also comes with fines, fees, and surcharges. However, it is almost always an infraction rather than a criminal violation, which means it is significantly less dangerous than being caught driving without insurance at all.
Of course, it is also possible that the officer will let you off with a warning. For more information on how to get off with a warning rather than a ticket, refer to that article on our blog.
Affordable Car Insurance for Low-Income Earners
One of the most common reasons people don’t purchase insurance is because they can’t afford it. Or, more accurately, they think they can’t afford it. In actuality, car insurance is much more affordable than most people think.
There are plenty of resources out there—both government and private—that enable people like you to find affordable car insurance that covers what you want and nothing you don’t. These barebones policies are perfect for low-income earners, people who don’t want to “waste money” on fancy policies, and plenty of other people.
A great place to shop around for insurance is Insurance.com. This website helps connect you with insurance providers around the country who can walk you through their available policies and help you select the one that’s right for you.
Of course, if you’ve already gotten a ticket for driving without insurance, you might be thinking that it’s too late. Fret not, for WinIt is here! With WinIt, you can hire expert attorneys to fight almost any traffic ticket.
So what are you waiting for? Download the WinIt app and get started fighting your traffic tickets today!
