How much does a DUI raise car insurance?

It varies widely by insurer and state, but a large, sustained increase, often doubling the premium or more, is common in the first year. Some insurers penalize it far more heavily than others.

How long does a DUI affect my insurance rate?

The insurance surcharge typically lasts three to five years, separate from how long the conviction stays on your driving record, which is often longer and set by the state, not the insurer.

Will my insurer drop me after a DUI?

Some will, especially after a repeat offense. If that happens, you'll generally need to look at insurers that specialize in high-risk drivers, often at a higher price than the standard market.

How a DUI actually affects your car insurance.

The conviction and the insurance surcharge run on different clocks, and the two get confused often enough that it's worth separating them.

Two different timelines

A DUI conviction stays on your driving record for a period set by the state, sometimes far longer than a decade. The insurance surcharge is a separate, shorter timeline set by your insurer, usually three to five years, after which most companies stop factoring the incident into your rate even though it may still show up on a background check or a state record request.

Why the increase is so large

Insurers treat a DUI as one of the strongest predictors of future claims they have access to, on par with or ahead of an at-fault accident. That's why the jump in premium after a DUI tends to be sharper than after a single speeding ticket or fender bender. How much sharper depends heavily on which insurer you're with, some price it as a moderate surcharge, others treat it as grounds to non-renew the policy entirely.

An SR-22 is often part of the package

Many states require an SR-22 filing after a DUI, on top of the rate increase itself. That's a paperwork requirement your insurer handles, not a separate insurance product, and we cover exactly how it works in our SR-22 guide.

What actually helps afterward

Shopping around matters more here than almost anywhere else, since insurers vary so much in how they weigh a DUI that the difference between the cheapest and priciest quote for the same driver can be dramatic. Completing any state-mandated alcohol education or treatment program on time avoids compounding the situation with a license suspension, which brings its own separate insurance complications. Staying claim-free and violation-free for the following few years is what eventually brings the surcharge back down, insurers generally reward a clean stretch even while a serious conviction is still technically on record.

If your current insurer drops you

Non-renewal after a DUI happens, particularly with insurers that don't specialize in higher-risk coverage. If it happens to you, look specifically at carriers that advertise or are known for writing high-risk policies rather than applying to the same standard-market insurers again, they're more likely to have a rate that's actually competitive for your situation.

See rates after an at-fault accident as the closest comparable data point, or run your own estimate on the rate calculator.

Why we built a rate spread tool instead of another quote form.

About us

Open Rate Index started from a simple annoyance: every car insurance site collapses a whole city's worth of pricing into one round number, then asks for a phone number before showing anything more specific. We wanted to see the actual range, insurer by insurer, without handing over contact details first. So we built a database of publicly filed rates instead of a quote engine, and a bracket tool instead of a form. No lead gets sold to an agent when you use this site, because we're not set up to sell leads at all. We're not an insurance agent, broker, or carrier, and we never will be.

Methodology

Every number on this site is labeled one of two ways. Filed means it comes from a real per-carrier rate filing for that specific city. Estimated means we don't have that per-carrier filing yet, so we spread a statewide average across a handful of insurers instead, clearly marked so it's never mistaken for a filed number. Credit tier and driving record are always modeled adjustments layered on top of a filed or estimated base rate, built from published industry-typical multipliers rather than any one carrier's private rating plan. Data is refreshed as new filings arrive, and every rate row carries the month it reflects. Full breakdown on the methodology page.

States and cities

We currently track 105 cities across 51 states, and 124 insurers, and that list grows every month as new filings get imported. Some markets already have a full per-carrier picture, others run on a labeled statewide estimate until a real filing lands. Every change is logged month by month on the changelog, so you can see exactly what moved and when, city by city.

Read the longer version on the About page, or the line-by-line breakdown on Methodology. Questions or something look wrong? Get in touch.