Car Insurance With a Suspended or Revoked License in Florida

Yes, you can get car insurance in Florida with a suspended or revoked license. In most cases you need it before the state will give your license back. What kind you need depends on why you lost it. Too many points usually means an SR-22 on top of a driver improvement course. A DUI means an FR-44, which carries much higher liability limits and has to stay active for three years. Either filing has to be on record before you go in to reinstate.

BadDrivingRecord.com has written FR-44 and SR-22 policies for Florida drivers since 2015, and we hear the same questions over and over. This guide answers them, starting with how a suspension differs from a revocation, since most of the insurance rules follow from that.

A suspension is temporary. Your license is set aside for a fixed period, or until you fix whatever caused it, and then you reinstate it. A revocation ends your license outright. When the revocation period is over you apply for a new one, and Florida makes you pass the required exams again before it reinstates you.

What you need to reinstate depends on why you lost your license:

Florida suspends your license at 12 points in 12 months, 18 points in 18 months, or 24 points in 36 months. The state treats a points suspension as a financial responsibility suspension, so on top of the driver improvement course and the fee, you have to prove you carry bodily injury and property damage liability. It can suspend the registration on your car until you do.

If your policy didn’t include bodily injury liability on the date of your last ticket, you’ll need an SR-22. A standard Florida policy only requires PIP and property damage, so if you were carrying the state minimum, this is you. The SR-22 policy needs at least $10,000 per person and $20,000 per accident in bodily injury liability, $10,000 in property damage liability and $10,000 in PIP, and you keep it for three years from the date the SR-22 takes effect. If you already had bodily injury and property damage liability on the date of the offense, you may only need to show proof of that coverage.

Florida calls losing your license for a DUI a revocation, but the insurance works the same way: the FR-44 has to be on file before you reinstate, and you keep it for three years from your reinstatement date. The limits are much higher than an SR-22: $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident in bodily injury liability, $50,000 in property damage liability and $10,000 in PIP. That’s ten times the per-person bodily injury limit of an SR-22, and it’s a big part of why FR-44 insurance cost in Florida runs so high.

If you have a DUI and a points suspension at the same time, the FR-44 can be used in place of the SR-22, so one policy covers both.

Both of these suspensions need a special insurance filing, an SR-22 or an FR-44, before Florida gives your license back. Your insurance company files the form with the state electronically. Get the policy and the filing in place first, give it a day or two to post, and then go to the DMV (in Florida that’s a driver license service center or your county tax collector’s office). The state won’t reinstate you without the filing on record, and the office won’t take a paper copy of the form or an insurance card in its place.

Whichever filing you have, it has to stay active for the full three years. If you miss a payment or cancel, your insurer reports it to the state, and your license can be suspended again. The three years don’t reset, but you can’t legally drive until a new filing is on record. There’s more on each filing on our Florida SR-22 page and our Florida FR-44 page.

You still can’t drive while you’re suspended. Having a policy in place means you can reinstate the day you’re eligible instead of waiting on an insurer to file your form. Which policy fits depends on whether you own a car.

You own a car but aren’t driving it

Florida requires PIP and property damage liability on every registered vehicle, even one sitting in the driveway. If that coverage lapses, the state suspends your license and your registration, and getting them back costs $150 the first time, $250 the second time within three years, and $500 for each one after that. If you got a notice saying your license was suspended for no insurance, this is usually why, and it can happen while you’re already suspended for something else.

Keep the car insured even while you can’t drive it. Turning in the plates ends the coverage requirement, but canceling the policy leaves a gap in your insurance history, and insurers charge more when you come back after a lapse in coverage. If you do turn the plates in, a non-owner policy keeps your coverage continuous until you’re driving again. Some insurers will also let a household member drive the car while you’re listed as an excluded driver, so ask yours.

You don’t own a car

You still need the SR-22 or FR-44 filing, so you buy a non-owner policy. It covers your liability when you drive a car you borrow or rent, and it costs less than an owner policy because there’s no vehicle to cover. Non-owner SR-22 and FR-44 policies are hard to quote online, which is why most people end up calling an agent. We cover the details in non-owner FR-44 insurance in Florida and non-owner SR-22 insurance in Florida.

You’ll be driving your own car again once reinstated

Buy a standard owner policy with the filing attached a few days before your reinstatement appointment. The insurer files the SR-22 or FR-44 electronically, and FLHSMV needs to see it on record before it will reinstate you.

The order below works for most Florida drivers. If you have more than one suspension on your record, each one can carry its own clearance requirement, so expect to repeat some steps.

1. 1Confirm why you are suspended or revokedFind out what the state wants from you. FLHSMV lists your clearance requirements, and they’re often more than one item.
2. 2Finish any required coursePoints suspensions need an Advanced Driver Improvement (ADI) course. DUI revocations need a licensed DUI program, and if you reinstate on proof of enrollment, you have 90 days to finish it or the license is canceled until you do.
3. 3Buy your insuranceIf the state requires an SR-22 or FR-44, the insurer files it electronically, so give it a day or two to show up on your record.
4. 4Pay your feesLapsed-coverage suspensions cost $150, $250 or $500 depending on how many you’ve had in three years. A DUI revocation adds an administrative fee and a reinstatement fee on top of your license fees.
5. 5Pass exams and install an interlock if requiredIf your license was revoked, pass the exams FLHSMV requires and install an ignition interlock if the court ordered one.
6. 6ReinstateGo to a Florida driver license service center. If you’ve moved out of state, you can mail proof and payment to the Bureau of Motorist Compliance; processing takes about ten business days.
7. 7Keep the policy activeKeep it in force for the full filing period. If it lapses, your insurer reports it and the state can suspend you again.

If you need to drive to work before your suspension or revocation ends, Florida may give you a hardship license. You apply at the Bureau of Administrative Reviews office for your county, and a hearing officer decides. If you’re approved, you can drive for business purposes only or employment purposes only for whatever is left of your original suspension or revocation.

The restrictions are strict. Driving outside them gets your license suspended or revoked again for the rest of the original period. A hardship license is still a reinstatement, so the insurance requirement comes with it: if you’d need an FR-44 to reinstate fully, plan on having it in place for the hardship license too.

Price depends on your record, your age, your ZIP code and the car, so averages only go so far. For a rough sense, NerdWallet’s May 2024 analysis put minimum FR-44 coverage after a recent DUI at about $1,309 a year, or $109 a month. On the non-owner FR-44 policies we write in Florida, rates run anywhere from $68 to $142 a month. An SR-22 policy usually costs less because the limits are so much lower. The filing fee itself is small, $15 to $25.

These make the biggest difference to what you pay:

That last point is what we do every day. Tell us what’s on your record and we’ll compare the companies that write SR-22 and FR-44 policies in Florida, then file the form with the state for you. Get a Florida quote.