TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2020
 It stands to reason that your driving record is going to be one of the major factors in determining your premiums when buying auto insurance. If you've been in a lot of accidents and have a lot of tickets, then your chances of accruing accidents and tickets in the future is going to be higher than those of someone with a clean driving record. But how long can insurers hold this against you when setting your car insurance premiums?
The short answer: A maximum of five years.
Look Back Period
Your insurance provider has a "look back period. This is a stretch wherein they're going to be looking at your record in order to evaluate the level of risk they're covering. The exact timeline will differ from state to state and from insurer to insurer, but it’s generally between three and five years
In criminal justice, a charge might stick to your record forever. This is because criminal justice is largely concerned with punishment. Not so in insurance.
In auto insurance, all your insurer really wants to do is ascertain your level of risk. Insurers like safe drivers, and they'd rather it be that none of their customers ever get into an accident. This means that they're not really interested in penalizing you for a 10-year-old accident. Maybe you were an unsafe driver back then. But if your record has been perfectly clean for five years straight, then you're a much safer driver than most.
Insurance is all about likelihood. This is one of the reasons teenagers often pay more for insurance. They don't really have a driving record yet, so it's always a blind risk when an insurer covers them. On the other hand, a 40-year-old who had a few incidents in their twenties — but has since been a model driver — is unlikely to suddenly start driving recklessly again. Their experience has taught them to be a safer driver
When an insurer offers you higher premiums due to an accident during that look-back period, they're not out to punish you. They’re simply protecting the risk that they're taking in covering you. They're not that concerned with what you've done in the past. They're concerned with what you're going to do while protected by one of their policies — and your driving record is used to predict that.
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