Driving School for Tickets and Your Insurance
Most people only want to worry about car insurance a few times a year when they make their premium payments. However, if you completely ignore your insurance, your premiums could rise without you noticing, or you could be missing out on opportunities to get a discount off of your rate. Everyone knows that your insurance premium will rise in the event of an accident. But many people don’t know that something as innocuous as a speeding ticket can have a serious impact on your insurance, leading you to possibly paying hundreds of dollars more a year.
Although tickets can be regretful mistakes, they are also forgivable by both the state and your insurance company. Attending driving school after getting a ticket will remove those points off of your record, and when points are removed, your insurance rate will drop as well.
Effect of a Ticket on Your Auto Insurance
There is a lot of variability that will determine exactly how and how much a ticket will affect your car insurance rate. Obviously how much you pay for auto insurance before the ticket will change how much your insurance rate rises, and better coverage plans might already come with forgiveness for tickets/accidents. Customers with a new company or cheaper insurance coverage are more likely to see significant changes to their insurance rates due to a ticket. If you have been with the same provider for a long time and have a clean driving record, there is a chance that your insurance might be affected much less. Even your age, type of residence, and marital status go into determining your insurance premium increase from a ticket.
Parking tickets do not have an effect on your insurance premium. However, moving violations (speeding, reckless driving, failure to stop) can make your premium 10-20% more expensive. Even seemingly minor offenses like failing to wear a seatbelt can raise your insurance premium. If you already have points on your record, your insurance premium will undoubtedly rise even higher than if it was your first ticket.
The severity of the ticket can also affect your insurance rates. Reckless driving generally has the biggest impact, while minor incidents that don’t put anyone in immediate danger will lead to less of a rise in your premiums. When it comes to speeding, how high you were above the limit determines how many points you get on your record and how high your insurance premium will rise.
Driving/traffic school
Luckily, there is a way to help reduce your insurance costs after getting a ticket: taking classes at driving school, and more specifically Nevada State Approved Traffic Schools. In Nevada, you can get a maximum of three points off of your driving record every 12 months through driving school. Availability and cost of driving schools vary depending on location. Make sure that the classes you registered for are DMV-approved. You can find a list of approved schools on the Nevada DMV website. There are even plenty of internet schools that you can register with. These will allow you to get points off and reduce your insurance rate from your own home.
The effect of driving school on your insurance rate is variable depending on the factors mentioned in the above section. Some insurance providers will completely remove the percentage added from the ticket, while others might progressively bring it down. It’s important for you to find this out before you get a ticket and find out the hard way.
Getting a ticket can be a mistake that brings plenty of consequences and expenses. But a rise in your car insurance rate doesn’t have to be a consequence that you are forced to suffer from long term. By taking driving school courses, you should be able to get points off of your driving record and bring your insurance rates closer to what they were before. In order to maximize your savings, use sites such as this to find the lowest insurance rates for similar coverage as well.