Parking tickets shouldn’t be independently responsible for jacking up your car insurance premium. But a failure to pay tickets over an extended period of time can come back to hurt your monthly premium.
As discussed thoroughly in this post why most car insurance policies are only six months long, carriers base the costs of their policies almost solely on risk. In their eyes, risky behavior includes speeding, reckless driving and driving under the influence. Parking violations don’t pose a hazard to other drivers; therefore they aren’t necessarily a concern of the insurance industry. Your provider will never pay parking tickets on your behalf.
BUT you do need to pay your tickets as soon as possible, or else they are going to spiral downward until your car insurance rates are ultimately affected.
For example, many municipalities have laws that could suspend your vehicle registration if tickets aren’t paid by a certain date. Getting your registration reinstated could be extremely costly; you might not have the money to pay for it. If you get stopped while driving a vehicle with a suspended registration -- this is a serious moving violation that will certainly affect your car insurance rates negatively. If you get pulled over for driving under the influence with a suspended registration, well, that is even worse for your car insurance rates.
If an insurance carrier offers you high rates based on parking violations in the past, shop around for a better deal. Most providers are not concerned with non-moving violations -- and if you’re speaking with one that is, you might want to consider another provider.
But while locked into a policy, it is extremely important to pay off your tickets in a timely manner. Delinquency or failure to pay parking violations could leak over into the metrics used by carriers to determine your rate, ultimately forcing you to pay more for car insurance.
