Full Coverage with an SR-22: When It’s Worth the Surcharge
- An SR-22 is a form your insurer files with the state — it is not a separate insurance policy.
- Expect a one-time filing fee (often $15–$50) plus a premium increase that reflects the underlying violation.
- You must keep the policy continuous for the state's full requirement period, usually 1–3 years.
Full coverage — liability plus comprehensive and collision — is available with an SR-22 filing, and the high-risk surcharge makes the decision unusually mathematical. The surcharge inflates every coverage line, so the physical-damage portion of a full-coverage SR-22 policy can cost $800 to $2,000 per year on top of liability. Against that, the protection only pays on your own vehicle’s damage. The rational rule: if the vehicle’s actual cash value is less than roughly two years of the physical-damage premium, drop to liability-only and self-insure. If you have a loan or lease, the lender requires full coverage regardless — the SR-22 does not exempt you from contract obligations. One often-missed point: keeping full coverage through the filing period and dropping it after (when rates normalize) is a common and sensible pattern, the reverse of the usual advice to re-shop coverage downward.