Penalties for Driving Without Insurance in Connecticut
A first offense for driving uninsured in Connecticut carries a fine of $100 – $1,000. License or registration suspension: Registration and license suspended — one month, six months on a repeat.
- First offense — fine
- $100 – $1,000
Section 14-213b(b) sets one range for any conviction, and it is what an ordinary private passenger driver faces. Section 38a-371(d) makes an owner's failure to keep the required security a class C misdemeanor, but it applies only "except as provided in subsection (b) of section 14-213b" — so it does not stack on top of the fine above.
- Subsequent offense — fine
- $100 – $1,000
The fine range does not step up for a repeat; the suspension does. An owner of a vehicle with a commercial registration who knowingly drives it, or lets it be driven, without the required insurance is guilty of a class D felony instead.
- License / registration suspension
- Registration and license suspended — one month, six months on a repeat
On a first conviction the DMV suspends both the vehicle registration and the operator's license for one month; on a second or subsequent conviction, for six months. The license is not restored until the owner shows the DMV that the required insurance is in force for every vehicle registered in their name.
- Vehicle impoundment
- Possible
The DMV gives police a weekly list of plate numbers whose registration is suspended. An officer who sees such a vehicle on a highway or in a parking area may take the plates and impound the vehicle. It is not released until the owner produces a valid registration and a current Connecticut insurance identification card, and a vehicle left more than 45 days is subject to forfeiture to the state.
- Annual surcharge
- No annual surcharge — $200 per lapse instead
Connecticut charges no yearly surcharge. What it has is a one-time $200 civil penalty for each lapse in coverage, paid under a consent agreement with the DMV in place of having the registration suspended (§ 14-12g(b)). Paying it waives your right to contest the finding that you let coverage lapse.
- SR-22 required afterwards
- No
No SR-22 filing follows a conviction. Section 14-213b(c) requires evidence that the required insurance is in force for each vehicle registered in your name before the license comes back, plus the $175 restoration fee. A separate § 14-112 proof-of-financial-responsibility order is possible but discretionary.
Connecticut sets $100 — higher than 2 of the 35 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $30 to $1,500.
How Connecticut compares with every other state
What it actually costs
A first offense runs $100 to $1,000, and where you land inside that band is the court's call. The fine is also rarely the expensive part.
Add what comes after the fine: $175 to be restored, the figure on the coverage lapse page. Those are the figures that decide what driving uninsured actually costs, and they are the ones left out of the headline penalty almost everywhere.
The part that stops you driving tomorrow is not the fine but the suspension: Registration and license suspended — one month, six months on a repeat. The car itself is exposed too — possible. Buying a policy the next morning is not the same as being restored — restoring the license or the registration is its own step, and the figures above are what it takes.
Every statute cited for Connecticut
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Fine Is the Cheapest PartA first-offense fine for driving uninsured runs from $30 in Florida to a $1,500 floor in Delaware — but South Carolina's $100 fine arrives with a $700 reinstatement fee, and the reinstatement is usually the bigger number.
- When a State Contradicts ItselfA state's statute and that same state's own agency page often give different answers on the same day. Seven cases we hit reading all 51 jurisdictions, why it happens, and where the agency is the one that's right.
- What a Gap in Coverage Actually CostsA lapse is billed differently in every state — by the day in New York and Maryland, by the reinstatement in Florida, by a registration fee in Tennessee, by a $600 noncompliance fee in Virginia, and in Ohio by a fine that does not appear at all.
More on Connecticut
Checked against the primary sources above on September 27, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.