The Texas Department of Insurance recently released a report detailing the number of people driving without coverage. The good news is the number of Texans driving without car insurance is still lower than it was a few years ago when it was over 20% of all Dallas drivers. The current figures show 1 in 6 people on Dallas roadways don’t have car insurance and this number is even higher than it was last year.
Here are some interesting numbers to help put that into perspective.
- There are about 290,000 people in Dallas County who are driving without car insurance.
- This works out to 16% of all Dallas drivers.
- Dallas ranks highest in the State for urban areas with the highest amount of uninsured drivers.
- The number of uninsured drivers Statewide is 2.5 million Texans or 14.3% of all drivers.
The four largest urban counties in Texas with uninsured motorists are as follows:
- Dallas with 16%
- El Paso with 15.5%
- Harris with 15.4%
- Bexar with 15.2%
Tarrant County has 13.6% of its drivers uninsured while Travis has 13.1%. The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) is currently sending out 25,000 notices a week to people found with no valid car insurance.
Locally, Dallas County dwarfs all other counties. The percentage of uninsured drivers across north Texas counties is listed below.
- Kaufman with 11.5%
- Johnson with 11.4%
- Ellis with 11.2%
- Rockwall with 9.9%
- Denton with 9.5%
- Collin with 8.8%
The TexasSure program, a partnership between insurance companies operating in Texas and TDI, has reduced the overall number of uninsured motorists. If you review your renewal, you’ll see a $1.00 fee per vehicle. This fee pays for database that tracks all drivers by VIN and whether or not they have current insurance. Police officers in Dallas and across the State will issue a ticket to anyone pulled over and driving without valid insurance. A first offense will cost $350. Get pulled over a second time and the fine jumps to $1,000 and a possible suspension of your driver’s license.
The most common practice is to pay for a policy and then cancel it 30 days or so later. Those with insurance are encouraged to protect themselves with uninsured motorist’s coverage for both bodily injury and property damage. This coverage protects the policy holder in the event a driver without insurance hits them. Insured Texans currently shell out about $1 billion a year to protect themselves should they be hit by a driver without insurance.
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