When Georgia authorities stop your car and charge you with drunk driving, you may face serious repercussions if that charge leads to a conviction. You may have to spend time in jail, perform at least 40 hours of community service and pay at least a $300 fine for a first-time offense, and the financial consequences do not stop there.
Once you start driving again after a first-time DUI conviction, Insure.com reports that you should plan on paying much more for car insurance than you did before. How much more should you plan to pay for coverage once you have a drunk driving conviction?
A sharp increase
Georgia motorists who have DUIs see some of the nation’s biggest jumps in auto insurance rates. As a first-time offender, you may see your premiums rise by an average of 78%. How might this impact your bank account?
Before you had that DUI, if your record was pretty clean, you may have paid about $1,818 a year to insure yourself while driving. After that 78% rate hike, though, this figure rises to $3,226. Thus, you should plan to pay $1,411 more a year for car insurance once you have a first-time DUI in your driving history.
Long-term impacts
How long of a span should you expect to have to pay another $1,411 a year for auto insurance? In Georgia, expect the DUI conviction to impact your insurance rates for three years after you regain the privilege to drive. If you receive no other convictions during that three-year period, your rates should go down again at the end of it.