Virginia Car Insurance Laws and Requirements

Let’s take a deep dive into the laws surrounding car insurance in Virginia.

Auto Insurance Requirements in Virginia

Virginia is one of two states that doesn’t require car insurance, along with New Hampshire. If you wish to skip insurance, you can pay a $500 uninsured motor vehicle (UMV) fee to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) instead. However, for those that want insurance, you must meet the minimum coverage requirements listed below.¹

Penalties for Driving Without Insurance

If you’re caught driving without insurance in Virginia, you’ll face the following penalties:

• License and registration suspension until you pay a $600 statutory fee
• SR-22 for three years
• Reinstatement fee

Carry proof of insurance every time you drive, whether that’s an SR-22 form proving you have the minimum required insurance or an insurance ID. Even if you have a policy but you lack proof, the state will view you as an uninsured driver.

Virginia requires liability coverage only, but if you want coverage for you and your passengers, you’ll have to buy additional coverages such as:

• Comprehensive: Sometimes, an event can damage your car that’s not a collision, like auto theft, vandalism, or inclement weather, like hurricanes, hail, and tornadoes. For those cases, you’ll need comprehensive car insurance coverage to repair or replace your car up to its actual market value.
• Collision: Collision coverage, on the other hand, applies to your damages from collisions, whether or not you were at fault.
• Medical payments coverage: MedPay covers your and your passengers’ injuries in accidents you caused, although you can use it to supplement another party’s bodily injury coverage in accidents you didn’t cause.
• Uninsured motorist coverage: Uninsured motorist pays for damages and injuries if someone hits your car who lacks insurance or if you’re involved in a hit-and-run. You can stack coverage, meaning if you have multiple cars on your policy with uninsured motorist coverage, you can multiply your limit by your number of cars to get a higher limit per car.
• Underinsured motorist coverage: You can also get a bundle of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, which also includes those who lack sufficient liability insurance to cover your losses. Depending on their coverage limits, the financial responsibility the law requires may not be sufficient.

The average cost of car insurance in Virginia is $861 per year, nearly a quarter less than the national average. Here are the average rates for specific coverages:

• Liability: $492
• Collision: $324
• Comprehensive: $149²

Since the state requires liability coverage only for those that buy insurance, you can get away with paying under $500 per year for insurance.

If you just purchased a new car in Virginia, you’ll have to get it reinspected within a year of your purchase date or first inspection and once per year after. While the state does not maintain a list of all 4,200 inspection stations, they include:

• Dealerships
• Automotive repair facilities; eligible garages will have a blue-and-white signs that says “Official Inspection Station”

Find a safety inspection site here: https://vsp.virginia.gov/find-a-safety-office/.

You’ll pay the following fees for your inspection, according to the Virginia State Police.³

But what about vehicles you purchased and registered out of state? If you live in any of the following counties or cities, you may have to get an emissions inspection every two years:

• Alexandria
• Arlington
• Fairfax
• Falls Church
• Loudoun
• Manassas
• Manassas Park
• Prince William
• Strafford

Emissions inspections are required for the following types of vehicles:

However, the following types of vehicles are exempt from mandatory emissions testing:

• Fire and rescue equipment
• Motorcycles
• Qualified hybrid vehicles achieving 50 or more city miles per gallon (mpg), or 48 or more mpg for model years 2008 and 2009
• Registered antique vehicles
• Registered military surplus motor vehicles
• Tactical military vehicles
• Vehicles powered by clean fuels exclusively, which include compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, hydrogen, hythane, and electricity

Emissions testing requires a $28 fee. Find a testing location near you.

Virginia has strict laws surrounding distracted driving. All drivers are banned from driving while using handheld electronic devices, which means that texting and driving is illegal. This law is under primary enforcement, meaning that police can pull you over for this violation on its own. Penalties for texting and driving include three points per violation and a fine based on the offense number:

• First: $125
• Second and subsequent: $250⁴

While Virginia may not require car insurance for most drivers, we recommend it, especially if you live in a more populated area like Virginia Beach, Norfolk, or Chesapeake, where 13, 11, and 9 percent of the state’s fatal car crashes occurred in 2021, respectively; this is collectively one-third of all the fatal crashes. To protect yourself against financial losses from an accident, whether it causes death, injury, or property damage, insurance is the best option.