So you just got a speeding ticket. Now you’re sitting there wondering the same thing everyone wonders the second those lights hit the rearview mirror: how much will my rates increase?
Here’s the honest answer: it depends. But let’s break down exactly what it depends on, so you’re not left guessing.
Number One: How Much Over the Limit You Were Going
This is the first thing that factors in. If you were going 1 to 11 miles per hour over the speed limit, it’s going to have an effect on your premium — but it’s manageable. Compared to something like going 15 or more over the speed limit, that’s going to be a lot more painful. Carriers draw a clear line between a minor lead foot moment and a genuinely reckless one, and your rate increase reflects that difference.
Number Two: Which Auto Insurance Carrier You Have
This is the part most people don’t realize — your rate increase isn’t a universal number. It kind of just depends on how that carrier is rating the speeding ticket. For some carriers, a speeding ticket could increase your auto insurance by 20 to 25%. For others, it could be 30 to 35%. Same ticket, same violation, completely different outcome depending on who’s writing your policy. This is exactly why shopping around after a ticket (or even before one happens) matters — not all carriers punish the same violation the same way.
Number Three: What Vehicle You’re Driving
It also could depend on what vehicle you’re driving. If you’re driving a faster vehicle with more horsepower, you could see the combination of a speeding ticket and a more powerful vehicle being more detrimental to your auto premium. Carriers aren’t just looking at the ticket in isolation — they’re looking at the ticket plus the level of risk your specific vehicle represents. A speeding ticket in a family sedan and a speeding ticket in a high-horsepower sports car don’t get treated the same, even if the violation itself was identical.
What You Really Don’t Want: A Second Ticket
Here’s the part that should really get your attention. What you really don’t want here is another speeding ticket in the next 5 years. We could expect to see premiums even doubling if there’s two speeding tickets in the past 5 years. That first ticket might sting a little. A second one within that window can be a completely different financial conversation — carriers start viewing you as a pattern, not an incident, and that shift changes everything about how they price your risk.
The Good News: There Are Ways to Protect Yourself
This is where it’s worth knowing your options. Erie’s rate lock can actually protect you against rate increases even with a speeding ticket. That’s a real safeguard that exists for exactly this situation — one moving violation doesn’t have to mean an automatic hit to your premium if you’ve got the right protection in place before it happens.
The Bottom Line
A speeding ticket isn’t a flat penalty — it’s a variable one. How far over you were going, which carrier holds your policy, what you’re driving, and your ticket history over the past five years all combine to determine what happens to your rate. Some of those factors are out of your hands once the ticket’s written. But others — like which carrier you’re with, and whether you’ve got protections like a rate lock in place — are things you can actually get ahead of.
If you’ve got a ticket on your record (or you’re trying to avoid getting burned by one down the road), it’s worth having a real conversation about what your specific policy actually does in that scenario. Not every policy handles it the same way, and knowing the difference before you need it is a lot better than finding out after.