Q: “Will points on my driver’s license affect my car insurance?”
A: “Yes—so I hope you’ve got a rainy day fund stashed away because your car insurance rates are definitely going to increase.”
You see, insurance companies evaluate risk of future loss by looking at people’s driving records. The more tickets, convictions, and points on your record, the more of a risk the insurance company believes you are and the more they’ll charge you. According to a new analysis of December 2012 car insurance rates, Insure.com found that the average annual car insurance premium for a driver with a clean driving record in Florida was $1,364 a year.[i] Considering that the average Floridian made $40,344 last year, that’s a whopping 3.38% of annual income spent on just car insurance payments![ii] And that’s for a clean driving record! The last thing you want is to have to shell out even more of your hard earned money to your car insurance provider because you got points on your license. Fortunately, if you receive a traffic ticket, you can typically avoid the assessment of points on your license and the associated costly insurance rate increases.
There are two ways you can get points assessed on your license in Florida: paying your ticket outright since doing so is an admission of guilt, or going to traffic court where you are convicted and there is an adjudication of guilt for the violation resulting in a permanent mark on your driving record. To avoid points on your license, never pay your traffic ticket outright. Instead, hire a lawyer immediately after receiving a ticket for a civil or criminal traffic offense, getting in a car accident, or getting arrested for an offense such as DUI. A Miami criminal defense attorney or a Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorney like the ones at the South Florida law firm of Galanter Law will do everything in their power to try to get your ticket dismissed in court. If a dismissal isn’t possible, your attorney will try to negotiate with the traffic court judge for a withhold of adjudication, which will keep points off your record and keep your insurance rates from increasing.
