Penalties for Driving Without Insurance in Indiana
A first offense for driving uninsured in Indiana carries a fine of up to $10,000. License or registration suspension: Until an SR22 is filed; ends after 180 days of continuous SR22.
- First offense — fine
- Up to $10,000
Knowingly driving, or letting someone drive, without financial responsibility is a Class A infraction (IC 9-25-8-2), and a court may enter a judgment of up to $10,000 for a Class A infraction (IC 34-28-5-4).
- Subsequent offense — fine
- Up to $500
With a prior unrelated conviction or judgment under the same section, a knowing or intentional violation is a Class C misdemeanor: up to 60 days in jail and a fine of up to $500 (IC 9-25-8-2, 35-50-3-4).
- License / registration suspension
- Until an SR22 is filed; ends after 180 days of continuous SR22
The BMV suspends your license, registration, or both until you file proof of future financial responsibility, then stays the suspension for 180 days and terminates it if no lapse is reported (IC 9-25-6-3(d), (g)). If you were in fact insured on the date in question, a Certificate of Compliance from your insurer removes the suspension. The old 90-day-to-1-year suspension and the 1-year suspension for repeat violations were repealed effective December 31, 2021.
- SR-22 required afterwards
- Yes
Required to end the suspension unless your insurer can file a Certificate of Compliance showing you were covered on the date in question.
How Indiana compares with every other state
What it actually costs
A first offense runs $0 to $10,000, 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: $250 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: Until an SR22 is filed; ends after 180 days of continuous SR22. 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 Indiana
What changed
December 31, 2021
Fixed 90-day-to-1-year insurance suspension replaced by a 180-day SR22 stay
H.E.A. 1199 (P.L.86-2021) rewrote IC 9-25-6-3 and repealed IC 9-25-6-3.5. A no-insurance suspension used to run at least 90 days and up to one year, and a repeat violation within three years meant a one-year suspension. Now the BMV suspends until proof of future financial responsibility (an SR22) is filed, stays the suspension on filing, and terminates it after 180 days without a lapse. No reinstatement fee is owed when the suspension ends that way. Guides that still quote a 90-day or one-year suspension for driving uninsured describe the pre-2022 rule.
Indiana Judicial Branch — Legislative Update, H.E.A. 1199 (P.L. 86-2021)
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 Indiana
Checked against the primary sources above on September 22, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.