Tennessee Car Insurance

Tennessee car insurance is just easier to keep than to get caught without.

Keeping active Tennessee Car Insurance will prevent you from finding yourself off the road with is suspended license.

Sometimes it is just easier to follow the rules, than to pay the consequences for trying to get around them. If you are going around Tennessee without the required Tennessee car insurance, you are going to end up paying for tickets, face license suspensions and then have to pay higher insurance rates for up to 5 years.

In the end, you will have more money coming out of your pocket in trying to get around Tennessee car insurance laws; than if you were to just pay the premium for the required coverage.

Minimum Tennessee Car Insurance

The state of Tennessee requires that its residents carry no less than 25/50/15 in liability limits for Tennessee car insurance. Broken down into plain English this means:

• $25,000 in coverage to cover the medical expenses for a single person.** This person is someone that you may have hit with your vehicle while they were walking, riding a bike or driving another vehicle.

• $50,000 in coverage to cover the medical expenses for all of the people involved in an accident that was your fault**.

• $15,000 in coverage to go towards that damage you cause to another person’s property.

** As an example, if you ran a stop sign and hit another vehicle with 3 people in it; your insurance would only cover up to $25,000 in medical expenses for each person. It will also only cover up to $50,000 for all medical expenses for all three people.

These coverage limits mean that if each person in the accident has $20,000 in medical expenses ($60,000 total), than your insurance company is going to pay $50,000 for these expenses. This means that you are going to be responsible for the remaining $10,000.

Penalties for No Tennessee Car Insurance

Failure to provide proof of insurance carries a fine of up to $100 and is classified as a Class C misdemeanor. In addition to the fine and the misdemeanor on your record, you also will have your driver’s license suspended.

A STOP will also be placed on your vehicle registration because you failed to provide evidence of insurance coverage. To be able to renew your vehicle registration, you have to get your driver’s license reinstated first. If you were able to provide proof of insurance coverage prior to the court’s disposition, then you will have to provide proof of insurance when you renew your registration.

SR-22 Form for Tennessee Car Insurance

An SR-22 form has to be added onto your regular Tennessee car insurance when your license has been suspended. Because your license is suspended when you fail to provide proof of insurance, you will need an SR-22 form when you get insurance again.

In Tennessee, you can be required to have an SR-22 for 5 years from the date your license was suspended. If you don’t reinstate your driver’s license during the 5-years following your suspension, you don’t have to file for an SR-22. However, if you do reinstate your driver’s license and then let your SR-22 lapse on your Tennessee car insurance, before the required time, your license will be suspended again.