Not All Convictions Are the Same Kind of Problem

Rating plans do not treat every conviction as one unit of badness. They sort violations into classes, and the distance between classes is much larger than the distance within them. If you are trying to work out how worried to be, the class is the question — not the fine, and not how bad the day felt.

The rough tiers

Plans differ, but the shape is consistent. At the light end sit ordinary moving violations — speeding within a modest band, an unsafe lane change, a rolled stop. In the middle sit more serious moving offenses and at-fault accidents. At the heavy end sit the majors: driving under the influence, driving on a suspended license, reckless driving, hit and run, and offenses involving injury.

Before you buy, the guide to first speeding ticket is worth ten minutes.

Why the top tier behaves differently

Three things happen at once with a major conviction, and only one of them is a surcharge.

• Rating. The surcharge is larger and the look-back window is usually longer.
• Eligibility. Some companies will not write the risk at all for a period. This is underwriting, not rating, and it is why the practical problem is often "who will insure me" rather than "what will it cost". The distinction matters.
• Good driver status. Section 1861.025 disqualifies an at-fault accident causing bodily injury or death outright, rather than counting it as a point you can absorb.

Where an accident sits

An at-fault accident with property damage only counts as one point under the good driver criteria. That is a meaningful distinction from an injury accident, and it is the reason the fault determination and the injury question both matter to your future pricing, not just to the claim.

What this means practically

For a single minor violation, the sensible response is usually to compare companies at your next renewal and otherwise carry on. For a major one, the response is different in kind: expect the market available to you to narrow, expect a longer horizon, and work with someone who knows which companies write the situation rather than applying one by one and collecting declinations.

In our office, the drivers who come out of a major conviction best are the ones who accept the longer horizon early and stop trying to find a shortcut — because the thing that genuinely fixes it is time with nothing added to it.

If you are in the middle of one of these, tell us plainly and we will tell you what the market actually looks like for it.