I remember the first time I got pulled over by the police…
I was 17 years old. I was speeding. I think it was something like 20km over the limit.
Anyhow, it was my first time getting pulled over. I was scaaaaared!
Actually, I was mostly afraid of my parents finding out about my speeding ticket and also of being the cause of their car insurance rate hike.
So I asked the cop, “Will my parents’ insurance company find out about my speeding ticket?” The cop assured me that they wouldn’t. That was because there were no demerit points attached to the ticket. So, the insurance company wouldn’t find out and, better yet, it wouldn’t affect the premium.
Phew!!!
The cop was wrong!
But then a few months later, I found out that the cop was wrong – The insurance company DID find out about my speeding ticket and it DID increase the premium, albeit only slightly. The bottom line was that the COP WAS WRONG!
Police do not know how tickets affect car insurance
Here’s the thing – The police really don’t know much about how convictions affect people’s car insurance. I mean, they know what they need to know to be able to do their jobs – That would mainly be knowing everything there is to know about the Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act (C.A.I.A), a section of the criminal code (Yes, it is a criminal offense to drive a motor vehicle without insurance). But, they do not know how the tickets that they dole out affect car insurance premiums (For the most part, I mean). Seriously, why would they know that? I mean, they don’t teach the police that in police training (I know – I used to be a cop).
So, when a motorist gets pulled over by the police and that motorist asks the officer if the ticket that he’s getting will affect his car insurance premium, the police officer might tell him that it won’t. However, that police officer would just be telling the motorist what he believes is the correct answer, even though it is not.
All tickets count
Here’s the thing… Every ticket that you get from the police, aside from parking tickets, will show up on your driver’s abstract, whether there are demerit points or not. And, every ticket that shows up on your driver’s abstract can affect your car insurance premium. It sucks, I know.
This post was brought to you by the nice lady that I quoted a few days ago that told me she didn’t have any tickets; I found out that she actually had three. Guess what? The cop told her that those tickets wouldn’t show up on her driver’s abstract because there weren’t any demerit points. The cop was wrong.
