Do Parking and Speeding Tickets Affect Car Insurance?

February 21, 2023

Depending on how serious the infraction is and how the ticket was issued, a traffic ticket can affect your insurance. Major traffic convictions will have a more significant impact on your car insurance than minor traffic convictions. Parking tickets will not affect your car insurance.

Do parking tickets affect car insurance?

Parking tickets do not affect your car insurance directly because they are not moving violations and do not pose a risk to the car or the driver. They do not appear on your driver’s abstract and your insurer will not see them.

What if you do not pay your parking ticket?

Parking tickets from private lots are difficult to enforce and do not affect your car insurance. But municipal parking tickets from parking on a city street do have the force of the law behind them.

If you get a municipal parking ticket, you may not be able to renew your driver’s license, registration, or license plate until you pay it. Municipalities often discount parking tickets if they are paid early, so it is a good idea to pay them right away.

Common parking tickets

Common parking tickets in Canada include:

Parking in a no-parking area
Parking next to a fire hydrant
Exceeding the time limit on a parking meter
Parking without a permit in an area that requires one

Your Western Coast car insurance expert will answer any questions you may have about traffic tickets and car insurance.

Do speeding tickets affect car insurance?

Depending on how much you were speeding, a speeding ticket can affect your car insurance. Speeding in a school zone, speeding in a construction zone, and speeding more than 50 km/h over the speed limit can all be major traffic convictions.

Speeding up to 45 km/h is generally a minor traffic conviction. Speeding as part of an activity that is a criminal code violation, such as racing or stunt driving, will impact your car insurance the most. One major traffic conviction can increase your car insurance rate by about 25%, and two can increase it up to 100%. A criminal code violation can result in an increase of 60%-300% in your car insurance rate.

How you got your speeding ticket matters

Depending on how you were caught speeding, your speeding ticket can increase your insurance rate a lot or not at all.

Police-issued tickets

If you receive a speeding ticket or other traffic ticket from a police officer, you may get demerit points, and if you get too many your license will be suspended. But insurance companies generally do not care as much about demerit points as they do about traffic convictions, which will affect your car insurance. If you get a speeding ticket from a police officer and are convicted, your car insurance rate may go up. If you get too many major traffic convictions, your car insurance may not be renewed.

Photo radar and red light camera tickets

Photo radar and red light camera tickets do not affect your car insurance because there is no police officer present to see who is driving. They are issued to the owner of the vehicle, who may or may not have been driving at the time of the ticket and do not affect your car insurance. But you will have to pay them to renew your driver’s license.

What if you got a few speeding tickets and your rate went up?

It is, of course, best to obey traffic laws and not get speeding tickets. But if you have gotten some speeding tickets that increased your car insurance rate, you can try comparing rates from different insurers.