Financial Channel

State: Arkansas.

Dear Fellow ExpertLaw'ers: I have a client who will shortly have a DWI conviction with an otherwise clean record prior to this. He has asked how the conviction will affect his insurance including will he be canceled, and if not how much he can expect his rates to go up (for example do they normally double, triple, etc.) and for how long until they get back to the "normal" rates. Also, how does the insurance company find out about the DWI--is the client obligated to tell them (I thought maybe so only if provided for by the terms of the contract) or does the company periodically do a check of its insured drivers to discover such information? Any feedback is appreciated.

I think the best way to get an idea of what insurance will cost is to use online car insurance applications and get actual quotes. There are insurance companies which "specialize" in hard-to-insure cases, so with "only" the one drunk driving conviction he should be able to find coverage even if his present carrier discontinues him - but it will cost a lot more.

I hadn't really thought about how insurance comanies detect drunk driving convictions - I can't imagine that they leave it up to the insured to tell them, as a lot of insureds would "forget" or not read the contract. I suspect that they have some sort of arrangement with the state to get a periodic report of new drunk driving convictions.