What that $30 ticket just cost your client in increased premium costs

Did your client caught driving 60 km/h in a 50 km/h zone?

Sure, that $30 speeding ticket doesn’t seem like much now. But it could cost your client almost $1,000 in increased auto insurance premiums during the three years that minor traffic stays on his or her driving record, Ratehub.ca warns.

“While getting a traffic ticket may seem like a one-time expense, the financial consequences on your auto insurance premiums can follow you for years,” Alyssa Prizzon, content marketing strategist for Ratehub.ca, writes in a blog post.

A comprehensive report by Ratehub.ca revealing the true total cost of traffic tickets in Ontario finds the initial fine is “just the beginning of a multi-year financial penalty that most drivers never see coming.”

For instance, let’s say the recipient of that $30 ticket is a 35-year-old female in Mississauga, Ont. She’s driving a 2020 Hyundai Elantra and is carrying $1,000 deductibles for collision and comprehensive coverage, and $1 million in liability coverage. She does not use telematics or bundling discounts.

Based on her profile, with a clean driving record, she’d be paying around $1,950 per year for auto insurance, or $5,850 over three years.   

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But add that one minor traffic conviction to her record, and she would see a premium rate increase of between 10% and 20%. That would result in a new premium of $2,243, or an increase of roughly $293 for the year.

Keep in mind that a driving infraction typically stays on the driver’s record for three years, Ratehub.ca says. Therefore, her $5,850 auto insurance premium for a clean record over three years would balloon out to $6,768 over three years — a $918 increase.

The cost of insurance gets even higher with a major offence on the driving record.

Let’s say our Mississauga driver is ticketed for distracted driving, which many insurers have started to classify as a “major” conviction. The fine might be anywhere between $85 to $3,000, depending on the circumstances.

This could lead to a premium rate increase of between 100% to 150%, Ratehub.ca notes. Suddenly, the driver’s $1,950 annual premium for a clean record becomes a premium starting at $3,900.

Assuming the conviction stays on the driver’s record for three years, that’s a cumulative premium payment of $11,805 — a whopping additional premium cost of almost $6,000 over three years.

And if your client is convicted and sentenced for a criminal offence such as drunk driving? The fine for that could be anywhere between $1,000 and $5,000.

In the aftermath, our Mississauga driver would likely see an annual premium rate increase of more than 150%, elevating her annual payment to $5,850, or $18,800 over three years. So, in addition to the fine, the driver convicted of a criminal offence could expect to pay an additional $12,950 in premium costs over three years, based on Ratehub.ca data.

Almost 286,000 tickets were issued in Ontario last year for speeding, aggressive driving, distracted driving and other traffic offences, says Ratehub.ca, citing data from the Toronto Police Service Annual Statistical Report.

The volume of tickets varies across municipalities, says the rate aggregator. “For instance, as of June 2025, more than 32,000 speeding tickets were handed out in just three weeks by an automated speed camera in Vaughan, Ont.”

David Gambrill

David has twice served as Canadian Underwriter’s senior editor, both from 2005 to 2012, and again from 2017 to the present.