Losing Out – How a DUI Can Affect Your Insurance Premiums


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It is never a good idea to drive drunk. Alcohol does impair judgment and can lead you to think you are not as drunk as you really are if you have one or two drinks. There are so many implications of driving drunk, with one of the milder ones being what a DUI does to your insurance. Below, we will look at how a DUI affects your insurance plan and its premiums.

Drunken Driving Violations

Before we go too far, we have to make some distinctions between how different states view DUIs. DUI, or Driving Under the Influence, refers to driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Some states use DWI or Driving While Intoxicated for drunk driving, and DUI for driving under the influence of drugs (legal or not) and marijuana.

The Cost of Your Insurance

The cost of your insurance will likely go up significantly once you have a DUI in your records. Driving while drunk creates a real possibility of getting into an accident and thereby increases the chances of you injuring yourself, your passengers, pedestrians, other motorists, damaging property, or even death. Because of this, insurance companies see you as a high-risk premium holder and this is why they will increase your insurance premiums. 

The rate at which the premiums will be increased depends on where you live but, in most cases, it increases by about 50-80% with some companies going as far as hiking it by over 300%.

Will I Lose My License?

Depending on the state you live in or where the offense was committed, you might have your license suspended for about three to six months. This can happen when a court suspends or revokes your license or the state motor vehicle department does it. Once this is done, you will have a DUI conviction on your records. 

Can I Find Cheap DUI Insurance?

Yes, but it is a lot more work than finding regular insurance. Because most insurance providers will look up your driving records and find out that you have a DUI, they might offer you plans that are too expensive. So, you might have to shop around quite a bit to get the right deals. When shopping around, make sure you compare these insurance providers with other providers in your state. If you can, shop around for smaller insurance companies as they might have better rates than the bigger companies.

If you do not want to go through all this, the best way to make sure you get the best deal is to use a comparison website. These sites usually curate many of the top insurance providers so you can see who offers the best deals and the biggest savings. If you still want to go with a big insurance provider, go through one of their smaller subsidiaries or affiliates. These usually have no problem taking on drivers with DUI convictions.

On these websites, it is also possible to get an insurance quote or talk to an insurance provider to have any questions you have answered.

How Long Will the DUI Stay in My Records?

Depending on your state, your DUI can stay on your driving records for as long as five years. Generally, the problems with your insurance provider will last for an additional 2-5 years after the record expires. This is not a fixed number and that too will depend on your state.

Remember that as long as the records are still alive, they will continue to hurt your insurance rates. If you want to know if your DUI records are still up, you can look up your DUI records on Public Records Reviews. This is a platform that allows you to check DUI records and other publicly-available information about anyone. They also have a number of verified record sites you can use to find information if you have a hard time finding it elsewhere. 

Once the records laps, it is important to keep your record clean if you want your premiums to stay low. Try your best to show you are a better driver and your insurance provider will reward you for it.

Keep Your Insurance

If your license is suspended, which it might be, your insurance rates might be unattainable once you start shopping for insurance again. The best thing to do in this case is to keep your policy from lapsing. You can do this by paying your insurance premiums even when your license is suspended. Although this might seem like a waste of money, the amount you save by keeping your insurance rate low will offset the likely increased premiums waiting for you at the end of your license’s suspension. 

A DUI conviction can affect your insurance in so many different ways. The best way to avoid all this is to not drive under the influence of anything including alcohol, drugs, or marijuana.

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